I sat down with Nathaniel J Hall to talk about their upcoming show Toxic, which they wrote and performed in alongside actor Josh-Susan Enright. Nathaniel is a theatre-maker, writer, performer and HIV activist from Manchester who has previously achieved amazing success with his first stage production First Time and their role as Donald Bassett in the hit TV show It’s a Sin.
Nathaniel started by telling me all about Toxic, how the idea for it came to be and how the process has been this far.
“In First Time, I told the totally autobiographical story of how I was diagnosed with HIV when I was 16 and the journey I went through, living in secrecy, and shame and moving from that to being very very public about my diagnosis. When I was making that show, what was going on in my personal life was totally different.
“I had been in a very toxic, codependent relationship and I was realising it was the impact of the HIV diagnosis and various other things: post-traumatic stress disorder and other things going on in both our lives which really meant that that relationship went spectacularly wrong. I don’t think either of us were bad people and I wanted to understand more, so I started speaking to lots of other queer people and doing workshops and speaking to friends and colleagues- it felt like everyone had their own story and it feels like it went beyond LGBTQ+ people. But there was something really unique in the stories I was hearing from queer people and I wanted to really delve deeper into that.”
That’s where the concept for Toxic arose. It’s the story of two queer people in their 30s who, in their own words, “fall in love and f**k it up.” It tackles this forced positivity of the Pride Movement and the challenges that queer people face which go unnoticed. This is not to say that queer people are broken or bad, but we’re carrying a lot: we grow up in fear, secrecy, we have to come out.
There’s a significant amount of research that shows that trauma and stress can have a real impact on people. The play looks at how these two characters deal with personal and societal stresses through the lens of HIV stigma, homophobia, gender norms, and racism. It’s a very funny, heartwarming show which is also quite hard-hitting in parts so it’s really going to some difficult places but it’s ultimately hopeful as well.
I then asked Nathaniel a bit more about the power and vulnerability that comes with staging autobiographical work, especially in the context of the LGBTQ+ community. While First Time was completely autobiographical, Toxic mixes their own experiences with those of other individuals in the community, through a long process of research, workshopping and sharing.
How did you find this creative process compared to First Time? Was it more challenging? Validating in different ways?
“When I wrote First Time, that was a very much heart-on-sleeve process: I’d been trying to tell my family [about the diagnosis] for 15 years and couldn’t overcome that lump in my throat. The show forced my hand and, with a deadline approaching, I told my story exactly the way I wanted to tell it and that kind of freed me as an artist because I wasn’t thinking about the community or representation. I was thinking, this is my story.”
But with Toxic, things are slightly more complicated. As Nathaniel explains, “It’s not just my story, I’m telling the story of two people. I really wanted the other character to be different from me.
“Josh-Susan, my co-performer, is non-binary and has Caribbean and White British heritage. I wanted, as a white writer, to make sure I was serving that story really well, doing lots of research, trying to understand and gain new perspectives and trusting my gut. I was really apprehensive at the start of the process about getting it wrong or enforcing stereotypes as I am a cis-gendered white gay man who has grown up in a certain environment.”
How did you overcome that?’
“Well, we went through a long process of sharing and ran workshops- it was really beautiful. This has been over two years in the making so it’s really not something that can be rushed. The ultimate thing is that for some people I might get it wrong still and you can’t get it right for everyone, but I think that the important thing with theatre and storytelling is that we really understand one another. It’s all about learning new perspectives.”
Listening to Nathaniel speak and reading about Toxic and their prior work, it immediately becomes obvious that the scope and layers of this project extends way beyond the stage play itself. I asked him more about their theatre company Dibby Theatre, the kind of outreach and community projects they promote in Manchester and the importance of organisations such as The Men’s Room or George House Trust in raising awareness and educating. Dibby Theatre sees Nathaniel J. Hall as Artistic Director alongside Ross Carey as producer.
Nathaniel spoke about what is at the company’s core and how they are connecting with Manchester communities.
“I and Ross both have a real passion for cross-partnership work. We’ve worked with Contact Theatre in the past, 20 Stories High in Liverpool, George House Trust, the HIV charity, working with young people and making work for young people. I have learnt from a very early moment in my career that community outreach is embedded, it’s not just a bolt-on at the end.
“During the pandemic, we created an outreach project called ‘In Equal Parts’, we ran workshops, made an online resource, conducted interviews and made three short films about experiences of people living with HIV across the city. With Toxic, we’ve tried to extend out further and work with other charities such as We Are Survivors, which supports male survivors of sexual abuse, and The Men’s Room, which supports male and non-binary sex workers or people who are homeless, as well as George House Trust. The people who run those services really have a wealth of knowledge about these issues that are in Toxic and the work we do, so having them on board, inviting them to see the work that we do and asking their opinion is invaluable and it means that we can also use the profile of our show to raise their profile and signpost people towards it. We think that theatre, television and film hold a unique place in being able to do that.”
Hearing about Toxic and the community work that you do, got me thinking a lot about my own knowledge of HIV representations in the media, inside and outside the AIDS epidemic. How do you feel about these?
“The thing with HIV representation in theatre and film is that it is often historical, so there’s an incredible bank of work like the subcategory of ‘Aids Plays’. But I guess when I was making First Time, one of the reasons for making it was that I didn’t see a modern representation.
“Most people have an awareness of HIV, but I think what people aren’t aware of is the psychological impact of it and I didn’t either when I started to make that show. I was living with PTSD and self-medicating with alcohol, drugs and sex and all sorts of stuff and it was only through the process of trying to understand that, I realised there really wasn’t much in terms of the contemporary experience.”
Do you think there’s a text or any form of media that is either particularly important to you or that you think people should be aware of to educate themselves more on the subject?
“I think it terms of public outreach, definitely. For one, there’s It’s a Sin, which was a great honour for me to be in as an openly HIV-positive member of the cast, although it was still historical. But I do think it did an amazing thing: when it aired, they were monitoring Google searches immediately after an episode. Things like ‘Can women get HIV?’, ‘How can I protect myself from HIV?’ and ‘How can I get a test?’ were skyrocketing. That, again, shows you the impact of drama to be an instigator, to make people curious and to push them to go out there and find information, so that’s really valuable and impactful.”
That’s amazing! Are there any plans to take Toxic to other parts of the UK? What does the future hold?
“We’re premiering in Manchester at HOME with an amazing team: new music from SHAR, amazing sound design, and movement direction from Plaster Cast, a trans, non-binary movement company. But of course, the show has got a life beyond this, we’re going on a UK Tour in the Spring.
“Alongside the show, our community engagement associate Tolu Ajayi has been doing some work with trans and queer people of colour to examine the themes of the show from their own perspective and then reimagine lyrics to Britney Spears songs based on them. On Friday 20, Tolu’s band NoirTones are having a post-show jam. They’re gonna perform some of those tracks and hopefully, when we tour we can find different opportunities to work in different areas and do some outreach and engagement work. So yeah, big plans and we’ll see where it takes us!”
Ultimately, Toxic ‘is like going on a wild night out with someone you probably shouldn’t go on a night out with but you want to!’ Nathaniel hopes that people come to it with an open heart, compassion for their community and maybe compassion for themselves and for their past exes (even though sometimes it’s really hard!).
You can catch Nathaniel J. Hall in Toxic at HOME Theatre from the 18th-28th October as part of HOME’s Theatre 2 Autumn 2023 Season.
Words by Giulia Fincato
