Edinburgh Fringe 2015 review: Willie and Sebastian – What a fabulous waste

A wonderfully sweary and economical hour follows the extraordinary lives of William Donaldson and Sebastian Horsley
Strained friendship: Grant Stott as the Soho dandy Sebastian Horsley and Andy Gray as William Donaldson
Steve Ullathorne
Veronica Lee7 August 2015

William Donaldson and Sebastian Horsley lived lives of extraordinary dissoluteness while squandering fortunes; Donaldson (aka Eighties spoof letter writer Henry Root) inherited from his shipping magnate father and produced Beyond the Fringe in the West End, while Horsley, an artist and poet, was grandson of the founder of Northern Foods. Together they ingested prodigious amounts of illegal drugs.

In a wonderfully sweary and economical hour, Rab C Nesbitt creator Ian Pattison tells the story of how their firm friendship came under strain when Donaldson — “Willie to my friends, that c*** to my enemies” — and Horsley fell in love with the same woman, Rachel (Michelle Gallagher, a nice foil to the two men).

Andy Gray (Willie) and Grant Stott (Sebastian) are huge names in Scottish panto and so are well versed in being overdressed and over the top. Gray is marvellous as the louche, sweaty and frequently trouserless Willie, whose flat is a scene of carnage, while Stott parades majestically as the haughty Sebastian — self-styled Soho dandy — in brocade frock coat and top hat. They smoke crack while bantering in Wildean aphorisms and squabbling over who has the greater claim on Rachel.

Pattison doesn’t attempt deep analysis of the tragedy of wasted talent and, in Horsley’s case at least, a life ended prematurely by drugs, but neatly hints at the fractured childhoods both men had and their distorted view of women; Donaldson was a serial womaniser while Horsley preferred sex with prostitutes to forming an adult relationship with someone he wasn’t paying. Gray and Stott mine the comedy nicely, and Sam Kane directs apace.

Until August 31 (edfringe.com)

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