As part of Paines Plough Roundabout’s 10th Anniversary year, Francesca Moody Productions, known for Fleabag and Baby Reindeer, announce the world premiere of V.L, a new comedy from the Fringe First Award-winning writers Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair. This latest collaboration from the duo who brought the hit show Square Go to Summerhall, is about young boys trying to navigate peer pressures, sexual anxieties and social status in the chaotic hormonal atmosphere of a small-town Scottish secondary school.
VL is short for a Virgin Lips that means, like the old song’s lyrics, Sweet Sixteen You’ve Never Kissed. Socially, the longer you stay a VL, the more of a VL you become and in the new play, Max and Stevie are two wee guys trying to survive in the social chaos of school and teenage years.
This new play is written by two of Scotland’s brightest theatre makers, Kieran Hurley (writer of ADULTS, Mouthpiece, Beats) and Gary McNair (writer of Dear Billy, Locker Room Talk, A Gambler’s Guide to Dying). It is the follow up to their Fringe-First award-winning Square Go that was a success with audiences and critics alike in sell out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018 and 2019 before a UK tour and a run at 59E59 Theatres in New York.
Acclaimed director Orla O’Loughlin rejoins the team along with actors Scott Fletcher, known for roles in BBC’s River City and NTS’ Black Watch, and Gavin Jon Wright, known for NTS’ Black Watch, NTS and ITV’s Taggart, who reprise the roles of Max and Stevie that they made their own in the 2018 premiere of Square Go.
Writers Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair say “In Square Go, we told the story of Max and Stevie as Max prepares for the masculine coming of age challenge of a fight at the school gates, a square go. This time round, in V.L., we meet our boys as they try to navigate the absurd sexual rites of passage of hetero-masculinity. As with Square Go, we’re fascinated by the high school playground as a brutal training ground where young boys learn their role within the absurd competitive, punitive rules that shape the violences of the adult world. But there’s bags of heart and humour in all this too, in the recognition of our own ludicrous and bruising teenage experiences. At this stage in their lives, Max and Stevie are just kids trying to survive a world they did not invent. And who knows, maybe they’ll manage to figure out something better than we did?”
Venue: Paines Plough Roundabout @ Summerhall
Dates: 1st – 26th August
Time: 20.10
Tickets: From £10
Running Time: 70 mins
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 