Review: ON RAILTON ROAD, Museum of the Home
Photo credit: Lara Dunn
On Railton Road is a striking new play by Louis Rembges and the Brixton Faeries that draws on real lived experiences and archival interviews to depict a household of squatters in 1970s Brixton.
This performance, innovatively directed by Ian Giles, is appropriately staged in Hoxton’s Museum of the Home and presents a powerful insight into historical queer domesticity.
This is a visually rich and immersive production with a strong ensemble cast that perform their roles as queer activists with relish. There is a palpable intimacy and familiarity between the players which creates a strong foundation to this depiction of found family and community activism.
The most striking part of this performance are the interspersed scenes from the pantomimic devised piece Mr Punch’s Nuclear Family – a queer masque originally performed by agitprop community theatre group the Brixton Faeries in the 70s, which critiques the protection of patriarchal tyranny by the state at the expense of vulnerable people including queer people and liberated women. The puppets, artfully designed by Oliver James-Hymans and mirroring the vintage Punch puppets on display in the museum itself, are jaw-dropping and should by all rights find their way into a museum themselves one day.
The script centres around discussions about the most effective form of activism – pitting the anarchic tactics of bomb-happy Casper against the more cerebral and pacifist approach of Daire. Ultimately, predictably, the creative approach wins by a landslide, and the band of queer activists decide to put on a production of Mr Punch’s Nuclear Family to make themselves seen and heard.
Although this production reaches towards rousing politics and stirring propaganda, it is ultimately disappointed by a flat ending that wraps everything up a bit too neatly and tidily, with the characters happily paired off in settled domestic partnerships with mortgages. This seeming queer idyll has a dark pall cast over it by the context of the present housing crisis.
This is a worthy museum piece that is beautifully complemented by its surrounding performance space. An affectionate hymn to historical agitprop theatre, although not entirely confirmed in its own status as a present political piece, On Railton Road is a wonderful evening of queer energy.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett
On Railton Road plays at Museum of the Home until 18 November, with further information here