Memories light the corners of my mind…misty water-coloured memmmmorieeeessss, of the way we were…

Once upon a time (2019), a young blogger, merely 19 years into her tenure as an honorary Manc, saw Nathaniel J Hall’s work as a writer/performer in the autobiographical First Time at Waterside Arts, Sale.

Hugely impressed, I had to make sure his talent wasn’t a fluke, so I obligingly went along to see his work Toxic at HOME in 2023, and then the updated production of the show at Lowry theatre in 2025 to make sure.

Nope, seemingly no flukes here.

Fast forward somewhat and we’re back once again like the old renegade masters that we are, but this time with a delicious twist. For this time Nathaniel steps into a directorial role and writer, Liam Mansfield, takes up the quill (sorry, I’m going to Shakespeare country this weekend and come over all Bard-coded), in this ‘bold new play about identity, community and being seen.’

Set in a youth club, the play explores […] the messy joyful process of self-discovery. Featuring a group of queer young people, their exhausted but fiercely protective youth leader and an outsider who sees the group as a threat, this is a story of compassion, warmth and honesty…

Now speaking of first times (cast your minds right back to the second paragraph), excitingly, we’re dealing with quite a few here. Clothes Swap is Waterside Art’s first in-house production, writer Liam Mansfield’s first play and last night, Sale played host to the world premiere of this celebration of the ‘vital importance of spaces where queer young people can exist without explanation.’

The themes in Clothes Swap are important, unapologetic and sadly all-too recognisable as issues continuing to act as a toxic thread running through today’s society.

The execution of highlighting awareness of them in Clothes Swap is strong, sassy, funny, frantic and authentic.

I love it when a play forbids me from seeing characters through the lens of ‘one and done’. What I mean by that is buying into them for the duration of the play (if lucky) and no longer. Temporary, two dimensional figures that stand in front of you for 2 hours (temporarily disappearing during the 20 minute interval), say what they have to say, then disappear, job done.

The forbidding comes in the form of characters having heart, layers and authenticity which gradually creates a buy-in from the audience member into what it is (or who it is) they’re selling.

In short, by the time the lights went down on the Clothes Swap stage and the applause started up, I was invested and wanted to see what they were going to do next.

A partnership between writer and performer, the words and narrative can be the most outstanding, original, innovative, awe-inspiring piece of written work ever conceived. But if you haven’t got the actors to bring them to life (and of course director to shape, inform and inspire the overall performance as part of one big beautiful collab), you’ve got nothing.

And Clothes Swap definitely had something.

With huge individual credit to the actors playing the youth-club teen members Tatum (Abel Hanson), Ash (David Carpenter) and Den (Naomi Ricci), the youth-club founder Chris (Nicola Keri) and the retired ‘outsider’ Val (Lindsay Eavis), we had an ensemble that worked well together and brought the story to life.

The energy was of a high frequency, with particular shout-out to David as Ash, who I advocate having a chaise-longue waiting for him in the wings, every time his character takes a brief beat and leaves the stage. I’d also like to mention Abel who, as Tatum, captivated me not only with every line they delivered, but the subtle expressions, body language, twitches and contortions that they injected into their performance and had me believing in Tatum as a person with a past, a present and a hopefully happy future (depictions of which are brought regularly to the stage in Sale so that we can all keep in the loop).

And this was a story that wasn’t afraid to tackle the tough rhetoric that blights our society – that of anti trans and anti-queer. And it was so clever and innovative in the framing and narrative it formed to do so.

Taking us into a youth club, a queer youth club – yes, great, will do the job, set the scene, play host to a variety of encounters, situations, tropes and triggers to take the story forward. But setting against the backdrop and concept of the Clothes Swap injected a clever element that not only provided a colourful and fun way to take us into their world and meet-cutes (and not so cutes) with characters outside of the club, but provided the perfect analogy of finding oneself, one’s identity, trying on different ‘hats’ if you like, taking cues and inspiration from aspects of others, and being in a state of flux as we struggle and strive to find out who we are and reach a place of self-acceptance and kinship with both those inside our tribe and out.

With a simple, colourful, playful set and aesthetic that at times gives Children’s TV presenter (and I mean this wholly and hugely positively – you should see the contents of my wardrobe – and I ain’t swapping any of that anytime soon…), alongside a smooth choreography of scene-changes and set-ups by the cast, Clothes Swap brought me into its bright, bouncy, bold, dopamine-dressing rainbow of a world whilst simultaneously delivering a dark reminder of the ignorance that continues to permeate society and the impact it can have. It made me feel things, it made me laugh, and it made me want to find those bright pink flares I could have sworn I still had. God, I hope I didn’t put them on Vinted during a fit of pique…

I highly recommend, and whilst the second performance is about to get underway as I type, I point you towards the third, with tickets available for Friday 5 and Saturday 6 June at Waterside Arts, Sale. Visit Clothes Swap | What’s On | Waterside for full details.

Production credits – Jason Lock