EDINBURGH 2016 - Review: TWO KITTENS AND A KID, The Space, 11 August

Two Kittens and a Kid had me hooked from the start. Christopher Wilson flounces onto stage and launches straight into his experience of growing up gay with a theatrical side and how he felt this meant he couldn't also be masculine. So he looked up to strong women as his icons, the "divas". He married his husband and was in the process of training to be a foster parent when once of his students asked if she could come and live with him.

Aged 10 and affectionately dubbed "kidlet", her parents had succumbed to a crack addiction. So this urban black teenager moves in with Christopher and his husband, as white and suburban as can be.

It helps that this is a fascinating story, but what really makes it is the way that Wilson tells it. He is an engaging performer with a fantastic singing voice and the tale is punctuated with diva anthems and his own musical creations. He talks us through broaching the subject of menstruation with his daughter, dealing with her teenage years and the first time he saw her with a boy. It's a beautiful and touching story.

Two Kittens and a Kid takes a bit of an unexpected turn and it nearly broke me. I was so completely invested in Wilson's story and desperately wanted a happy ending. Forty-five minutes wasn't long enough for me, and I would have liked to have heard more.

Two Kittens and a Kid runs at The Space until 20 August.

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