Review: Candy at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park

When, a few years earlier, his mates went off to uni, he started working all hours in a pub and enjoyed unlimited opportunities for lock-ins. He spotted the dangers, moved on, and is now doing well selling car insurance and avoiding the advances of his female manager.

Will (superbly portrayed by the impressive Michael Waller, who also produced the show) takes us back to his early school days and the arrival of another William, “an awkward lad with greasy hair”.

Candy at Park Theatre, Finsbury Park (Image: Ali Wright)

He turns out be a bit of a surrealist - drawing giraffes with toothbrushes as necks and heads. Later, the grown-up Billy is the guitarist in an undistinguished Indie band. Will goes to one of his gigs but finds his act has changed. Billy, now Candy, is still a singer … and in drag.

He describes Candy in loving detail as: "The most beautiful woman I have ever seen". Shocked at his infatuation, he reminds himself that her hair "… is in a box somewhere," yet he can’t get her out of his mind.

Transferring from a successful run at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, this 60-minute monologue is set in a working men’s club complete with glitter curtain and cabaret tables, and is one of the most brutally honest, but accessible, pieces of theatre you are likely to see this year.

Candy runs at Park Theatre until September 9. (Image: Ali Wright)

At times very funny, writer Tim Fraser’s dialogue is naturalistic, frank and studded with surprises as Will tries to comes to terms with his own self-image, questions of loneliness, growing old, and the shock of falling heads over heels in love with Candy.

The Park Theatre audience was spellbound as Waller let us into the head of a man who is infatuated with someone he knows is a made up character, yet he cannot help himself.

Candy runs at Park Theatre in Finsbury Park until September 9.