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Based on a true story, Small Town Boys by Tim McArthur (A Word For Mother) is coming to the
Union Theatre this September. In the summer of 2023, two strangers cross paths in the USA and
discover they both dated the same boy as teenagers in the North East of England. Through a
series of flashbacks, the audience witness how both men’s past relationships flourished,
unaware of each other’s existence. Small Town Boys is a raw and honest show about how
people perceive their first loves and how we put them on a pedestal.
The show stars Nathan Taylor (Our Gay Wedding: The Musical), Stuart Simons (Passion)
and Dominic Charman (The Picture of Dorian Grey). After a sold-out run of Tim’s show Deeper
and Deeper at the Union Theatre last year, Tim will direct Small Town Boys alongside Max
Turner Prize winner Madeleine MacMahon.
Small Town Boys journeys through the lives of two men who both came out early in their
teenage years in the same area of England. Exploring the gay scene in Middlesborough through
the lens of the two strangers, it considers the impact Section 28 had on their upbringings as gay
men from a homophobic area of the UK. The characters navigate an honest conversation about
their lives, being older and how being gay has affected them. The play sees the men’s
acceptance of themselves and how this changes over time.
Tim McArthur comments, ‘Small Town Boys is based on a true story. A period of time that was
difficult being gay and out in the North East of England. Thatcher’s Britain hated homosexuality
and of course the Aids pandemic dominated the gay community. However, there was a strong
undercover gay scene thriving in Middlesbrough. Two teenage boys meet and fall in love,
another teenage boy meets and falls in love with one of the other boys. As you get older, you
may look at past relationships, or even our first love with tainted glasses, or you may hold that
memory in your mind as a fairy tale romance. Didn’t we all want that when we were young to
fall in love, kiss a lot of frogs until we found our prince? But what happens 30 years later when
that first love was not what it seemed to be. How scary it is to discover the crown has slipped?’
