Theatre review: The Boys in the Band

"I am what I am, a 42-year-old pock-marked Jew fairy," declares Mark Gatiss's Harold, the birthday boy guest of honour at a New York party in 1968.

This was a time when gay life could only be lived openly indoors, a year or so before the Stonewall riots, which told the world that America's civil rights movement had a gay wing.

So every expression of gayness in Mart Crowley's groundbreaking play - before which gay men were generally depicted as loners tormented by an unspeakable affliction - has to be seen in that context, even when it leans a tad too heavily on the tropes and conventions we sometimes call stereotype.

With that reservation, Adam Penford's terrifically acted, rare revival is a lot of fun. Populated by seven gay men who arrive at Michael's (Ian Hallard) New York pad to celebrate the birthday of the razor-witted Harold, the play's tension is derived from the unexpected arrival of Michael's former (straight) college room-mate Alan, an educated alpha male who personifies the increasingly liberal but still intolerant society of the time.