Strangers in Between review | Midsumma Festival | fortyfivedownstairs

There's nothing more important than family, let that be the family you are given or the family you make. In Tommy Murphy's Strangers In Between, a young man dealing with his sexuality escapes from his small city of Gouldburn to Sydney's Kings Cross in order to find himself, but in the process ends up finding a family to support and guide him. While this production was first staged in Sydney in 2005, and there are elements of it that are still relevant to today's society, its place in 2018 is difficult to pinpoint.

Murphy's script shoots out genuinely funny gags and witty one-liners like rapid-fire, but in return we rarely spend any time getting to know the supporting characters that are far more of interest than the protagonist. This might be Shane's story, a young, white male coming to terms with his homosexuality, but in 2018 his story is nothing we haven't heard before and so audience engagement wanes. Shane's naivety also begins to wear thin very quickly, particularly with the inconsistencies of his character where he is able to find a job and get his own one-bedroom apartment but then has no idea what his medicare number is or how to even get one.