Fruit Flies ★★★

Fruit Flies — ★★★

Fresh, silly and unapologetically queer, Fruit Flies has the ingredients of a cracking piece of new Fringe theatre, even if they’re not quite blended together yet.

From Scottish company Fast Snail Productions, Will Evans’ new comedy begins with a wonderfully petty queer crisis. Maddy visits her old gay best friend and meets his new friend Steph. Sparks fly, Chappell Roan tickets become a source of conflict and, before long, the pair find themselves propelled into a bizarre world where they’re forced to compete against each other again and again.

Because apparently even friendship can become a contact sport.

It’s a fun premise and the opening establishes the characters beautifully. The dialogue feels contemporary without desperately screaming, “Look! We know queer people!” The language, relationships and humour instead feel like they’ve actually come from within the community.

All three characters are well developed, diction is strong and the performers have an easy chemistry. Maddy is the standout. Having seen their work previously, there’s a confidence and presence here that again catches the eye, but importantly never at the expense of the other performers. This remains an ensemble, and everyone holds their own.

Then things get weird.

The increasingly surreal battles between Maddy and Steph are intentional, the show’s own description promises a bizarre world in which they’re repeatedly pitted against one another, but this middle section currently needs greater clarity. I understood what was physically happening; I wasn’t always sure why it was happening or what each escalation was revealing about these characters.

The result is a production with a strong beginning and satisfying ending, but a middle searching for its clearest identity.

Underneath the madness is something interesting about queer friendship, possessiveness and the age-old battle over the gay best friend, the “fruit fly” fighting for dominance when another enters the ecosystem. It’s a modern millennial queer love triangle, albeit one concerned as much with friendship and territory as romance.

The staging is confident and the simple set works, although a few carefully chosen additional props could give the increasingly absurd world more theatrical texture.

Fruit Flies isn’t quite boots-the-house-down-mama territory yet. But there’s something here.

The cast is strong, the writing is fresh and the concept has genuine prospects. Another development pass, particularly clarifying and tightening that surreal middle, could transform a good piece of new queer writing into a very good one.

For now, it’s messy, funny, contemporary and promising.

★★★