A Child Made of Love

The difficulties of LGBT politics are often best exorcised on stage. Glasgay! commission A Child Made of Love tackles the controversial issue of gay adoption in a sweetly satirical way, borrowing the styles and motifs of nursery rhymes that provide a harsh contrast with thorny reality.

It is difficult to judge where a writer’s use of the fairytale theme should begin and where it should end. It would have been all to easy, and perhaps disengaging to an audience, for this problem to be solved as simplistically as Prince Charming slaying the dragon. Instead, Matthew McVarish constantly reminds us that life is not a fairy tale.

Mike and Joe’s longing for a child seems the natural progression for an relationship that has spanned eight years. Mike, an artistically frustrated children's writer, is driven mad by the unfulfilled fairy tales unfolding inside his head, while lawyer husband Joe fights a difficult child custody hearing. How should we judge paternity? By biology or by emotion?

Andrew Agnew is a remarkably soft and sensitive actor. As Mike, he brings a soothing maternal quality to the role. Appropriately, this compliments the gender roles that one might expect of the play, without descending into the high camp of a nuclear family. His warmth lends itself well to comedy and it is in this comedy that we see the defiance of survivors.

Edward Corrie, by contrast, portrays an intense need to succeed at work and at home. The strain of disappointment and frustration involved in the adoption process is underlined by a deep sadness, and this is convincingly and sophisticatedly portrayed. Even in his most fiery moments, Corrie’s eyes fill with tears.

The play’s best scenes are its quietest; those in which Agnew and Corrie pose the arguments for gay adoption. This is not a laboured attempt to impose a political message, but a sweet and sincere image of homosexual relationships. Away from the red tape that threatens their future happiness, a family home is established.

As Gepetto wished to the Blue Fairy for a son in Pinocchio, A Child Made of Love asks for a kinder understanding of an issue that has divided many.