Boy Out The City – a loved up lockdown lodging turns lonely for an actor needing to make peace with himself (Lyric Theatre until Sunday 21 April)

When Declan Bennett and his boyfriend moved out of London to rural Oxfordshire, their adventure was supposed to be a liberating side-effect of the Covid lockdown that was denying them of work as actors. A chance to live it up in cosy comfort. But the sojourn in picture postcard Watlington turned into an isolated prison when his other half suddenly had to fly out to film in Atlanta for six months. Sentenced to live alone, the demons of childhood trauma, adult addictions, and a tendency to overbake banana bread all had to be dealt with.

Boy Out The City documents Declan’s gradual breakdown as he finds himself with the space to finally process his teenage years in Coventry with the homophobic bullying and his attempts to suppress his sexuality. A significant health scare in his 20s adds to the distress he’s been bottling up. The enforced loneliness drifts into purposelessness and a boredom that invites introspection. Step into the Declan’s dark tunnel and wait to see if he can find the light.

The one act show starts out with pleasingly cocky energy as the audience get used to the unfiltered nature of Declan’s mind. Parts of the show are delivered almost as performance poems, albeit just a tad overwritten. The script is enriched with Max Pappenheim’s powerful soundscaping and Alex Lewer’s beautifully engineered lighting effects: Declan’s strobe-lit breakdown is mesmerising.

Declan delightfully swerves mid-sentence into an Oirish accent any time he needs to relay a conversation. His 84-year-old next door neighbour, Anne, adds colour to his seclusion: she profits from his overcooking while, later on, he benefits from her sense that not all is well.

Unusually for this genre of self-discovery show, there’s a lot of room for faith. Declan’s nurture in the Catholic traditions brings comfort and liturgy, even if the public face and actions of the church have unpicked his confidence in the institution. The language of surrendering is familiar, and while that faith parallel can’t be stretched too far, there’s a spiritual openness that adds to the vulnerability of the storytelling.

There are plenty of laughs: toothy vaginas might not be to your taste but Declan’s short 12 Days of quarantined Christmas nightmare is a well-executed sequence. Sometimes the narrative feels like a learner driving swerving on black ice. But within minutes, the sense of direction returns and the plot’s twists and turns are never tortuous.

Declan’s performance has panache and passion and the preachy finale feels justified and authentic given the hour of honesty that has gone before. Directed by Nancy Sullivan and using every surface of Reuben Speed’s cottage outline set, Boy Out The City continues its run in the Lyric Theatre until Sunday 21 April.

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