Scotland

Buggers – Pleasance Courtyard

Francis Bacon distorted the human figure on canvas. Buggers asks what happened when that same capacity for distortion entered one of the most important relationships of his life.

Written by Alistair Hall and directed by Alice Wordsworth, the play immediately demythologises the famous story that Bacon first encountered George Dyer burgling his home, giving us instead an almost wordless wine-bar tryst between Alistair Hall’s Francis Bacon and Peter Clements’ George Dyer.

The following morning begins to expose the gulf between them. “I like your nose,” says Bacon. “Yeah, it’s been punched a lot,” replies Dyer. When Bacon discovers that Dyer has done time, he is delighted. “How wonderful.” Then comes a line which encapsulates both Bacon’s attraction to Dyer and something fundamental in his art: “To look dangerous is to look interesting.”

The exchange also establishes the extraordinary class distance between them. Bacon is already an internationally renowned artist, culturally sophisticated and moving in rarefied circles; Dyer is a practically illiterate petty criminal from London’s East End. There is tenderness alongside cruelty, particularly in a beautifully handled sequence in which Bacon tries to teach Dyer to read. The physicality between Hall and Clements is extraordinarily honest, unselfconscious and unsentimental, with Wordsworth’s direction allowing their bodies to communicate as much as Hall’s words.

My one real reservation is that another important imbalance is less apparent on stage. Bacon was almost 54 when they met in 1963, Dyer around 29, a difference of roughly 25 years, yet here the two men appear of broadly similar acting age. I would have liked that generational difference to be visible too, giving us initially an older, established Bacon holding almost every advantage before the balance of power between artist and muse begins to shift.

The darkness is never far away. “The reality of being human is like being eaten alive,” Bacon tells us, a line which seems to capture something of the emotional landscape of both the man and his work.

Rosie Elnile’s Perspex corner panels provide the production with its most ingenious approximation of Bacon’s art. Paint and water splatter across them, but the extraordinary moment comes when Hall presses his face hard against the Perspex. Sitting immediately beside that panel, I watched his features grotesquely distort through the smeared surface. For an instant, Bacon himself becomes a Bacon.

The technical work is particularly impressive, especially within the tiny confines of Upstairs at the Pleasance. The lighting and soundscape continually contribute to the unease of the piece, but it is the lighting in particular which gives us some startlingly Bacon-like imagery. At one point the two men writhe together on the floor as sharply sculpted light catches and fragments their faces and bodies, creating something grotesque, contorted and unmistakably reminiscent of Bacon’s painted figures. It is another clever way of articulating his art theatrically without ever needing to reproduce the paintings themselves.

I would have welcomed more colour. Bacon’s reds, blues and yellows and vivid pinks could perhaps have been expressed more effectively. Having previously been involved with Red, John Logan’s two-hander about Mark Rothko, I was reminded of how powerfully theatre can explore the relationship between artist, art and muse. Buggers captures Bacon’s distortion and violence brilliantly, but perhaps not quite the chromatic intensity of his paintings.

Yet it finds other sensory ways into Bacon’s world. Dyer striking matches in near darkness is extraordinary. We see the flame, smell it and almost feel its heat as Clements’ face flickers within it. Theatre suddenly becomes dangerously immediate.

This is a powerhouse of a play. Hall’s writing and Wordsworth’s direction get remarkably close to the love, dependency, violence and creative hunger binding artist and muse, while Hall and Clements give us two phenomenal performances that never pull their punches. Buggers isn’t perfect, but for anyone interested in art, or simply great acting, this may be about as close as we are likely to get to understanding the man behind Bacon on stage.

Playing until August 30^th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026BUGGERS

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 23rd August 2026

North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: