Coming Out with Dr Who
Dressed in the scarlet robes of the Prydonian Chapter of the Time Lords, complete with the collar of high office, comedian and storyteller S J Wyatt has lived many lives but is now in the company of “classic” companion Tristan (likely to twist his ankle at inopportune moments) and serving out their exile from Gallifrey in a room at the Edinburgh Fringe which is distinctly un-TARDIS-like in that it actually seems smaller on the inside.
A self-confessed bisexual, bipolar, non-binary, dyspraxic, dyslexic, socialist activist, they are also, unsurprisingly and above all else a Whovian, their hair the colour of the Sixth Doctor’s coat and currently a resident of the same suburb from which Sarah-Jane Smith hailed, the “dystopian future of Croydon,” but it is swiftly apparent that their one-person-and-friends show Coming Out with Dr Who is in a state of temporal grace, a safe and welcoming space for any who can squeeze in regardless of species or planet of origin.
The show perhaps understandably as scattershot as might be expected of a person whose outlook and experiences have been informed by often overlooked or misunderstood challenges and inspired by an entity whose own lives and continuity have been equally erratic, Coming Out with Dr Who does at times feel like a work in progress but is carried by an enthusiasm, honesty and directness, revisiting and confronting the eighties and nineties with HIV and the hostility of Section 28 and doing it all with the Doctor in abstentia.
Doctor Who historically accused of being too violent, now accused of being “too woke,” forgetting that the Daleks rose in the wake of fascism, genetically pure and exterminating any deviation, the audience participation requiring multiple participants to cold-read a script while Wyatt steps back rather than leading slows the pace, as do rounds of passing out and collecting props, clumsy moments easily addressed as what is already a positive show eases from regeneration blues to becomes comfortable on its new feet, celebrating diversity rather than the conformity of the Cybermen.
Coming Out with Dr Who continues at the Brass Monkey until Sunday 24th August
