Tom Gill – Growing Pains: A Vox-Pop

Punters attending our Wonderful Wednesdays performance evenings might have noticed our man with a tape recorder (and sometime Anthony Roberts impersonator) Charlie Davison, usually butting into your conversation to get your opinion on the show you’ve just seen.

Here are the first fruits of his 2018 labours – thanks to those who stopped by to share their opinions!

You can view the full season of Wonderful Wednesdays HERE

Wonderful Wednesdays Audience Feedback & Discussion
Recorded by Charlie Davison immediately after:

TOM GILL : GROWING PAINS
Wednesday 14th MARCH 2018

Charlie
What is your immediate reaction – we’ve literally just come out…

Audience Member Female 1
Yeah…fantastic. I saw him up in Edinburgh last year – Edinburgh fringe I thought he was brilliant then. So, I brought my friend to see him tonight and I thought that he was equally fantastic.

Charlie
Did you see that same show?

Audience Member Female 1
Yes!

Charlie
..so you’ve had, sort of, the luxury of having a few months to think about it… so did you find that you’ve changed the way you think about the show or the …

Audience Member Female 1
Oh no no no – he is so passionate and, err, so dedicated in what he does and he’s so good at it, so – no. He was just awesome…

Charlie (turning to friend)
So.. it’s the first time you’ve seen it. What’s your immediate reaction? It finished about three minutes ago…

Audience Member Female 2
I didn’t know what to expect at all but I was really impressed with it I thought it was absolutely brilliant. How he can remember all that!! And, umm, convey those different characters … like when you get drawn right into it… It’s not just him, you can actually imagine the the other characters as well..

Charlie
I thought there were a couple of points that were really strong emotionally…sort of thing… I don’t know if it struck you like that?

Audience Member Female 1
Yeah, yeah…. in fact (laughs / sobs)… I want to cry (laughs)… yeah, yeah

Charlie
There’s something about it for me… I mean..I think a lot of it about men…it seems..is that fair to say?

Audience Member Female 2
yeah, yeah… how toxic it can be… boys… I mean boys and men’s relationships with their fathers and things and how fragile they can be….and how much they learn from their fathers. Both traits good and bad.

Charlie
What did you think about his female characters? I mean there was a couple of them, wasn’t there? There was his mum, and then there’s the girlfriend who is in it. What did you think about the way that they were…

Audience Member Female 2
I think there was obviously the way that probably the relationship with his father had kind of, maybe, made him value the women in his life a little bit more. Probably… because he didn’t have such a great relationship with his dad and he really felt that anger and things… that he knew that he really loved them as well but he didn’t quite know how to deal with his emotions. But they were conveyed brilliantly.

Charlie
Do you think that the things that he is talking about, like his relationship with his dad, for example, and the relationship with his friends when he was younger… do you think that that is true of young men or do you think that he is describing something rather unusual?

Audience Member Female 2
I think that it’s very true! Personally… my brother is gay, so he had a very different relationship with my dad than maybe a heterosexual man would have had… like my husband had with his father. But I think it is very relevant now to be discussing issues like that.

Charlie
Do you think that your dad would have liked the show?

Audience Member Female 1
He was in Edinburgh! He saw it there! He was in tears at the end. I think it really struck a nerve. You know. Like where he was coming from…(Laughs)… even though dad was nowhere near as bad!(laughter) I think that young men can relate to things like that and it is refreshing to see a show like that.

Charlie
Yeah… but his dad actually doesn’t change in the end, does he? I mean he says “get your bag and fuck off!”. I mean at the end he is still doing that. So what do you think is the actual potential for like older men to change? And to actually embrace some of the stuff that he is talking about? Or do you think that it is a bit of a lost cause?

Audience Member Female 1
No. No, I think that men can change if they were actually to take the time and sit down and listen to someone and listen to something like that…. Might kind of trigger something and make them say kind of “hang on a minute”..

Charlie
I was actually expecting the dad to change at the end…

Audience Member Female 2
Yeah! So was I.. when he was in his older age and his son came and stood in front of him and talked like that… I really thought he was going to change!….yeah…..

Charlie
Thanks very much it’s been lovely talking to you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *