Rob Madge’s solo show, My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?), opened in London in 2021, it was a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, it went into the West End, first at the end of 2022 and then again in 2023 and it is now out on tour in 2024. The Belgrade Theatre in Madge’s home town, Coventry, is the third stop on a victory lap round the Midlands, taking in Leicester and a sold-out run in Birmingham, before continuing on to Liverpool, Derby, Edinburgh and Manchester.
In it, Madge tells the story of how they used to dress up and perform for their family as a child and how their childhood enthusiasm turned into a career as a child actor. What it’s really about, though, is a celebration of Rob’s family, especially their dad, who loved their flamboyant, theatrical son, not in spite of their difference but because of it.
Ryan Dawson Laight’s set consists of a living room with footlights round the edge and a projector screen above it on which we see home videos of Madge as a child acting out their favourite Disney stories with the help of their parents and grandparents. Madge enters to a round of applause from the audience and goes into the first of several excellent songs, “Anything Is Possible”, written for the show by Madge with music by Pippa Cleary. Madge establishes an immediate connection with the audience, the songs are proper musical theatre numbers and they are a terrific MT performer.
The message of the opening song, “Anything is possible when the stage is your living room”, is followed by grainy video clips of a young Madge performing as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Cinderella and other Disney heroines plus, more reluctantly, the Beast in Beauty And The Beast (they wanted to be Belle but dad bought a Beast costume instead). The joy in their childhood performances is infectious, and you can see the delight in Madge’s parents and grandparents who are drawn into their child’s magical, imaginative world.
The happy, playful, creative child is bullied at school and becomes quiet and lacking in confidence. The teacher’s response is to suggest that, if they want to fit in, maybe Rob should spend less time in the school’s imaginative play area acting out stories. This leads into the show’s ‘darkest hour’ song, “Pieces Of My Heart”, in which Madge sings, “Shouldn’t have been so bold at school, Shouldn’t have stood up on that stool. Belting my heart out, proud and strong, Who knew such things could be so wrong?”
Madge’s family is having none of this. Their mum gets a job as a dinner lady to watch over them at school and their granddad builds them a toy puppet theatre to play with at home. Madge’s confidence starts to return, they flourish and they end up getting cast in a string of major West End shows. If you didn’t spot the reference, the title is from the song, “Beggars At The Feast” in Les Miserables, which Madge appeared in, and which includes the line, “This one’s a queer, but what can you do?”
Madge is non-binary and, beneath the humour and the music, the show has a serious message. Gender and sexuality are not binary, they are a spectrum, and they are not innate, they are taught in the family and policed by, amongst others, school. The ‘retail TERFs’ at the Disney store don’t help either, with their rigidly gendered costume sections. Michel Foucault said the same thing, but Rob Madge has better songs.
In one of the video clips, Rob’s dad records a message for his, as yet unborn, child. He addresses it to, “Boy or girl, we still don’t know” to which Madge adds, “We still don’t”. The message to LGBTQ+ members of the audience is you are not alone. The message to everyone else is be grateful for your queer and non-gender conforming friends, they can be a source of joy in your life, as Rob Madge was in his family’s.
My Son’s A Queer (But What Can You Do?) still has the feel of a fringe theatre show. It is one hour long with no interval and with the obligatory, ‘if you liked it, please tell your friends’ appeal at the end, but with added follow spots, pyrotechnics, a bubble machine and confetti cannons. Jai Morjaria’s lighting and Tingying Dong’s sound design fill the main stage at The Belgrade while staying true to the show’s fringe spirit, and Luke Sheppard’s direction gives the show the structure and variety you need in a solo performance.
This is a joyous, life-enhancing and, at times, deeply moving piece of theatre. Another Coventry boy, Philip Larkin, wrote, "they fuck you up, your mum and dad". Rob Madge’s mum and dad didn’t, they saved their child when other people were doing their best to, and if this show is anything to go by, they did a good job, too.