Spooky and Gay – Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh
Orlandoan, Bruce Ryan Costella packs a lot into this hour long show at Banshee Labyrinth as part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, maybe too much. Arcing from queer Halloween fairy tales through cowboy folk tales to real life gay bar shootings, with a splash of cheery then sad ukulele tunes thrown in for good measure. Uplifting in places, spooky at times, then desperately sad, it is all a bit of a rollercoaster to be honest.
Costella’s, Orlando homage ends rather unfunnily with his recounting of the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Florida in 2016, where 49 people died, and 53 were seriously injured. The overriding emotion at the conclusion of the show is of a man desperately trying to save himself with humour in spite of an overwhelming burden of grief. Which probably exp...