Maybe it’s mere coincidence, but is Nick Hytner’s National Theatre boy crazy? After The History Boys (by Alan Bennett) and Coram Boy (by Helen Edmundson, after Jamila Gavin’s novel), we now have Market Boy (a new play by David Eldridge) on the way. Can it be long before the National considers a revival of The Boys from Syracuse (or the hip-hop Stratford East version, Da Boyz)? Or of Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys? Or even a season by the Lady Boys of Bangkok? The National long ago did Athol Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys already, but there’s also John Byrne’s Slab Boys trilogy due for revival, and from New York, we could have the current Broadway hit Jersey Boys or the off-Broadway hit Altar Boyz. Or a never-seen-in-London 1975 off-Broadway gay musical, Boy Meets Boy?
It’s also time the girls fought back. Here are some suggestions: Top Girls (Caryl Churchill), The Factory Girls (Frank McGuinness), The Girl with Red Hair (Sharman Macdonald) or The Goodbye Girl (Neil Simon); or on the musicals front, 70 Girls 70, Dreamgirls, Funny Girl or Me and My Girl.
Or perhaps these preoccupations with gender titles could meet in the middle, with a revival of Rebecca Gilman’s Boy Gets Girl.
