Greater Manchester Fringe: Forever 27 – The Lass O’Gowrie, Manchester

Writer: Sarah Evans

Reviewer: Tracey Lowe

The Public Reviews Rating:

Given it is a year since the death of Amy Winehouse, this play comes at an appropriate time. Forever 27 tells the story of Mark, an average gay man, who turned 27 on the day that Winehouse unfortunately passed away. He decides, in order to leave a beautiful corpse, he will kill himself before he turns 28, to join the infamous ’27 Club’. Mark decides to live his final year by the motto, “live fast, die young”, while dealing with unrequited love, tedious work colleagues and family drama.

This one-man show is performed ably by Patrick Seymour, who embodies all the characters he represents with ease. He is elegant, graceful and hilarious. For a character working towards quite a selfish act, he is very likable. It requires a certain skill level to hold the audience’s attention for such a period, but Patrick Seymour is very engaging, and has the benefit of a wonderful script to work with.

The live action is broken up by raw voicemails from Mark’s mother, which unravel parts of the story beautifully, and give an insight into Mark’s family problems. It’s quite a clever tool, and gives the audience another perspective on the story.

Forever 27 is a wonderful monologue, with a gripping twist at the end. Dealing with issues of self-worth, confidence and sexuality, it is an extremely relatable piece of work.