Two elderly men sit side by side, hand in weathered hand. You’d think they’d been together for ever, but no. Alex and Colin find comfort in one another, but theirs is a bond forged in the care home. They speak caringly but sparely to each other: each comes alive in memory, addressing the long-gone loves of their youthful London lives.
Peter Gill’s plays (Small Change, The York Realist) are ruminative, delicate. Although happily less conflicted in his sexuality, his sensibility can resemble Terence Davies’ cinema, delving through the past. Something in the Air is slim but not slight, a poignant portrait of how brightly remembered lives can shine.
