The Bedlam Theatre brings Jonathan Harvey’s Beautiful Thing to the stage from 28 to 31 October. Set on a South London council estate, the play tells the moving yet humorous story of Jamie (Andrew More) and Ste (Finley Gilbert) as they navigate adolescence, friendship, and first love.
I meet director Gemima Iseka-Bekano in Pleasance Courtyard. Fresh from a seminar and squeezing in time for our interview, she is juggling commitments, yet there is something remarkably composed about her. With her vibrant personal style and friendly charisma, she carries herself with the confidence of someone unafraid to stand out. From acting and improv to songwriting, her varied creative interests all feed into her approach to storytelling.
In her final year of university, Iseka-Bekano explains that she wanted to take on a project that genuinely mattered to her. She first discovered Beautiful Thing in a bookshop on Buccleuch Street, picking it up because “the title caught my eye.” Reading it while lying in the Meadows on a sunny day, she found herself laughing, crying, and falling for its lack of pretension. “This is really human and warm,” she remembers thinking.
Set on a London council estate much like the one she grew up on, the play struck an immediate chord. Her vision for the set centres on the brutalist architecture, red railings, and peeling paint that others might dismiss as ugly. For Iseka-Bekano, however, these surroundings hold joyful childhood memories. “When the sun hits just right, that ugly brutalist concrete can look really beautiful.” She finds a striking tension between how a place appears to outsiders and what it means to those who call it home. She has asked her team to create a set that might initially appear dingy or unattractive, but gradually reveals its warmth as the characters inhabit the space and the story unfolds.
For Iseka-Bekano, the play offers more than the often used story about queer suffering. Although Beautiful Thing does not shy away from dark queer themes, at its core it is a celebration of queer joy, self-expression, and discovering who you are, even in challenging circumstances.
Iseka-Bekano’s directorial approach is highly collaborative, with everyone sharing responsibility for telling the story. Her face lights up as she talks about the cast, praising their vibrant personalities, hard work, and willingness to bring their own interpretations to the characters. Rehearsals have involved countless conversations about the characters’ backgrounds, intentions and the “lives between the pages,” helping the actors make their performances feel believable. Drawing on her own experience as an actor, she encourages the cast to trust their instincts and contribute their own understanding of the play, rather than simply following direction. The process has reinforced for her “the importance of conversation, that’s my message to the world.” Research alone cannot produce an authentic portrayal — it is through sharing perspectives and questioning assumptions that the cast can bring their characters to life, allowing audiences to encounter experiences beyond their own.
Iseka-Bekano has also taken the play’s themes beyond the stage. For Leah, one of its characters, music offers an escape, with The Mamas & the Papas allowing her to dream of something beyond the circumstances she finds herself in. Iseka-Bekano has started to get into Leah’s music taste — “I wasn’t a big Mamas & Papas fan… Now I am!” — showing how working on the play has taught her the value of talking about music and sharing your music taste. Inspired by this discovery, she organised a vinyl and CD swap as a fundraiser for queer people experiencing homelessness, supporting charities such as the Albert Kennedy Trust and London’s The Outside Project.
She has also organised an art exhibition, When I Grow Up, inviting artists to join a conversation about growing up queer, self-expression and self-discovery. For Iseka-Bekano, these events are a natural extension of Beautiful Thing, creating opportunities for queer expression and community beyond the theatre itself. Fundraising will continue throughout the production, with donations collected during the run and a makers’ market showcasing artists’ work in the café before the show.
When I ask what she hopes audiences will feel when they leave the theatre, Iseka-Bekano’s answer is simple: “I just want people to feel as moved and as warm as I did.” Yet she is equally clear that she cannot dictate how people respond to her work. “Selfishly, I don’t direct for an audience,” she laughs. Every audience member brings their own experiences and perspectives to a performance, making it impossible to control what they take away. “There is never any use in any creative outlet to try and tell people how to receive your art.”
Beautiful Thing invites us to look beyond the concrete, peeling paint and hardships its characters face to find the warmth and humanity within. But whether every audience member sees the beauty Iseka-Bekano sees is, ultimately, up to them.
EUTC’s Beautiful Thing is running at the Bedlam Theatre from 28-31 October. Buy tickets here.
Image by Beau Wolton, provided to The Student for press use.
