The Adventures of Buttboy and Tigger

Sat among a well-dressed, predominantly male audience while watching the apparent re-enactment of the racier scenes from a particularly explicit gay porn film, the thought “how did I end up here?” does cross one’s mind. However, behind its crass title and vulgar opening half lies a production that, when persevered with, is a warm, sensitive and universal portrayal of loneliness and the search for love.

The Adventures of Butt Boy and Tigger follows a series of conversations between two young men in an internet chat-room. We meet the eponymous Butt Boy and Tigger—online aliases used by the pair—as they are meeting each other, typing away at their keyboards, talking for the first time. After sizing each other up, they embark on a series of explicit sexual fantasies, performed with hilarious aplomb by Australian actors Felix Allsop and Angus Brown. During the open, frankly extraordinary scene the room is buckled over at the sight of two, fully-clothed men dry-humping each other and narrating as they go.

However, it isn't long before the formulaic first twenty minutes becomes stale, as the pair simulate a series of scenarios that would not be out of place in a grainy 70s porn flick. It is not until the pair are about to embark on the same journey for a fourth time that the mood dramatically shifts. Suddenly, the deep loneliness of Butt Boy—real name, Jamie—is revealed: here is a man unreconciled with his homosexuality, looking for love on the internet – a place which affords him the safety of anonymity.

After a vulgar, in-your-face opening, this sudden seismic shift in terms of tone and plot makes starkly apparent the plight of a desperate man. More affectingly though, the dichotomy between the hedonistic opening scenes and the more emotionally weighty climax serves to illustrate the chasm between the popular stereotyping of gay men as promiscuous and emotionally stunted and the infinately more complex reality. What is popularly portrayed as the image of homosexual relationships is first offered up as reality before it is torn apart.

From a seemingly unpromising beginning, this is a performance that reveals real intelligence and, though it feels reminiscent of a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan film, a lot of heart.