It's a Sin actor Nathaniel Hall to debut latest play at HOME Theatre Manchester

Mel Barham spoke to Nathaniel Hall all about his new play

A new play written by It's a Sin actor Nathaniel Hall is set to hit the stage in Manchester.

The actor from Stockport also stars in 'Toxic' – a play set in Manchester's '2017 underground queer rave scene' and focuses on how trauma can create unhealthy relationships in the LGBTQ+ community.

Nathaniel has already sold out five of his twelve performances at HOME in Manchester.

Nathaniel said: "It’s the story of two queer people who, in their own words, meet, fall in love, and mess it up.

"It’s a rollercoaster ride through their two year relationship, but it’s also quite a passionate look at the things that might go wrong and the reasons why."

One of the characters has HIV and his story is based off Nathaniel's own experiences.

Nathaniel was diagnosed with HIV at aged 16, but chose to keep it a secret from his family for 17 years.

After winning awards for his play 'First Time' at The Edinburgh Fringe, he was given the opportunity to audition for the Channel 4 Series It's a Sin, where he became the only openly HIV Positive member of the cast.

He said: "It was just a real honour to be a spokesperson for my community. There’s so many amazing HIV activists and people living with HIV from my community who don’t get that platform, so I really saw it as a privilege."

It was during the release of It's a Sin in 2021 that Nathaniel started writing his latest play.

He said: "Behind the scenes, things were very different. My personal life was in free-fall, I was coming out of a very toxic, codependent and at times abusive relationship.

"I’d also found myself in these cycles previously, and I kind of wanted to look at that and ask 'why is this happening?' I’m not a bad person and I don’t think my exes were bad people, but we seem to find ourselves."

Nathaniel began talking to other members of the LGBTQ+ community, and from those conversations the show was born.

Regarding the characters in the play, he said: "These two people have had various different trauma’s in their life.

"They share this stuff so they think that they’ve bonded over it, but actually, they haven’t dealt with it themselves and they kind of collide in quite a dramatic fashion."

Through research, Nathaniel found that one in four gay or bisexual men will go through an abusive relationship. In his play, he looks at how trauma can lead to abusive situations.

He said: "My research has shown that lots of people struggle with shame and stigma and low self worth so I wanted to explore that and try – I don’t have the answers, but maybe try to start a conversation about that."

However, Nathaniel has also promised some lighter moments in his latest play: "It’s still a really funny show, I always try to write serious drama and it never ends up that way, people still seem to laugh.

"I think humour is a great way to take audiences to dark places, and there also has to be hope as well.

"There’s also the sexiest macarena you’ve ever seen in it, so if that’s not a selling point I don’t know what is."

Toxic, which is produced by Dibby theatre, will be at HOME in Manchester from Wednesday 18 October to Saturday 28 October.

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