Guest Blog: Tom Ross-Williams On THIS ISLAND'S MINE

This Island's Mine was originally written in 1988 for Gay Sweatshop in response to Section 28. Yet it doesn't feel like a museum piece, and in some ways it's still sadly resonant to a London in 2019.

Of course, there has been huge progress made in terms of attitudes towards the LGBT+ community in the past 30 years. As well as being an actor, I also spend a lot of time working with young people through my activism with The Advocacy Academy, and even just the amount of out young queer people I encounter on a daily basis makes it feel like a very different landscape to when I was growing up.

But here we are, 30 years later, still questioning the validity of teaching children about LGBT+ relationships and families, with recent protests outside primary schools in Birmingham in response to the LGBT+ inclusive No Outsiders lessons.

And I worry that narrative about progress often erases the hardship that so many LGBT+ still face - in particular, when talking about trans, gender nonconforming or non-binary people whose very legitimacy to existence is often allowed to be the subject of debate. As someone who identifies as non-binary myself (I use they/them pronouns), I so often find myself in spaces having to justify my right to identify as I choose, and I find it hard to celebrate progress when we live in a society where so many trans people face violence on a daily basis.

Undeniably, we have many more queer role models, and young queer people are no longer having to grow up without ever seeing themselves in the public eye. That being said, the overwhelming majority are still cisgender, white and male. As queer people, we're so used to be referred to as a community, but sometimes I worry that forces LGBTQ+ people into an unrepresentative monolith rather than the rainbow we know ourselves to be.

And that is one of the reasons This Island's Mine feels such a progressive play. In the late Eighties, there was Philip Osment depicting queer characters with real depth and nuance. Long before conversations about intersectionality were commonplace, Osment was challenging the perceived homogeneity of the gay experience. Lesbian and gay characters are given even weight which, still today, feels like a rarity. And as the play unfolds, it explores how race and class are major factors when it comes down to the different lived experience of homophobia - a conversation that, even now, often gets missed.

At one point in This Island's Mine we see Selwyn, a young black gay man (played by Corey Montague-Sholay), struggle to confide in his white boyfriend Mark (the character I play) after he has been a target of police brutality. It's a tender and fragile moment. Mark says he understands - after all, he knows what's it's like to experience homophobia; in the play, we see him being fired from his job for being gay - but ultimately he has to confront that Selwyn's reality as a black, gay man places him at the sharper end of violence.

As a queer actor, I find it so galvanising to be part of a play that depicts gay and lesbian characters with such complexity - their lives are multifaceted and their trials reach beyond their sexuality. I feel indebted to the Gay Sweatshop for pioneering the way for LGBT+ theatre in the UK and proud to be picking up the mantle from them.

This Island's Mine weaves together a tapestry of outsiders who are on their journey from surviving to thriving. And I think now, just as much as in 1988, we need queer narratives of hope. I hope audiences will leave enriched by the legacy of a play with a 30-year history and buoyed with the potential to make a better future.

This Island's Mine at King's Head Theatre until 8 June

Photo credit: Mark Douet

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