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Fun Home review – Bechdel memoir takes stage musical in new directions

Young Vic, London
This adaptation of Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel is a beautifully performed mix of memory-play and strip-cartoon

Oklahoma! this ain’t. During his tenure at the Young Vic, outgoing artistic director David Lan has shown a willingness to explore new types of musical theatre. After The Scottsboro Boys and A Man of Good Hope, we now have this Tony-award winning show based on a graphic novel by Alison Bechdel with book and lyrics by Lisa Kron and music by Jeanine Tesori. If it moves one, it is because of its ability to explore the multiple mysteries of family life.

The form is a mixture of memory-play and strip-cartoon. The mature, 43-year-old Alison is on stage throughout recalling key moments from her past, which she prefaces with the word “Caption.” We see her as an Oberlin College student when she nervously comes out and then embraces her sexuality. We also see her as a young girl rejecting party frocks and identifying with a butch woman in a cafe. But at every stage her life revolves around her father who is a mix of smalltown English teacher, funeral director and house-restorer. He is also, as Alison eventually comes to realise, gay.

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