Belt Up's The Boy James

The cosy sitting room set that hosts The Boy James is hidden away in a labyrinth of corridors in C Soco, still blackened from a fire eight years ago and cursorily fitted out for the Fringe. This evidence of past chaos suits the play, an immersive portrait of innocence lost.

The Boy James begins with the audience drawn into playing games with the lead character, a boy who sees the whole world as his plaything. When the adult world intrudes, eliciting anarchy and violence, the boy's life is shattered. Often only a foot away from the action, the audience cannot help but be drawn into the production's imagery. The subject matter is often disturbing, particularly in the scenes involving a girl who has been stripped of her innocence, a victim-turned-abuser.

While it is rarely a good thing for a play to give the audience all the answers, The Boy James suffers from failing to pose any complete questions. There are the slightest hints which take the story in interesting directions—asking just what the relationship between the characters is, and, indeed, if they are all real—but the play never gives the audience enough of an intellectual foothold.

Perhaps the most memorable visual moment is at the play's conclusion. The audience leave the room together, hand-in-hand in a warped reflection of the earlier childish wonder and emerge into Soco's traumatised corridors. It's a powerful image, and this is what The Boy James is best at. Meanwhile, the ideas fade away, lost in a vacuum.