Firstly, a thank you to Nick for getting the ticket for me, was a lovely gesture.

I have seen the play before, my diary tells me that it was 4th October 2000 with Tony in Wellingborough. From memory that version was based on the film whereas last night I thought it was more possibly the original play.

It’s about two teenage guys living in South London in the 80’s. though the decade wasn’t overly apparent last night.

Jamie lives with his barmaid mum and Ste lives with his abusive drunken father next door in a tower block. They’ve been friends for years then realise there is more to it than that. This is the love story of those two, their coming out at a difficult time of homophobia, drugs and illegality. It’s really uplifting.

The play was excellent, all the cast shocked me at how good they were and my pre judgement was that the actor playing Jamie’s mum was totally wrong for the role, she wasn’t. Who she played was horrible in ‘Eastenders’ but in this, she was very believable and the audience warmed to her.

For some reason a significant portion of the audience left at the interval. I can but presume this is because they didn’t realise it had gay content and, if this is correct, it shows how far we still have to go in acceptance and equality.

Now, for me it brought back memories of my first real love. I was a little older than Ste & Jamie but my boyfriend wasn’t. We’d been friends for some time and it was almost out of the blue that love happened. Our relationship was illegal then just as it was for Ste & Jamie. Sadly, my Mum died and never got to know me as gay, my Dad was oblivious to everything. To me, the relationship I had with my first was truly beautiful.

The way it blossomed and how I felt I don’t think I will ever feel again but, seeing the play last night was a lovely reminder of much happier and surprisingly less complicated times.