Love is Only Love Review: ‘There are echoes of Netflix’s Heartstopper here’

Words: Simon Button; pictures: Manuel Harlan

A little too short at a mere 70 minutes, Love is Only Love is really sweet – a gay love story where, as its author Sam Harrison notes, no one dies, and the lovers get to sing and dance centre stage rather than in the chorus and the ending is a happy one. Bravo to that!

And bravo to Harrison, who is as loveable a performer as he is true-to-life as a writer. He’s also a really good singer, weaving songs from the shows into a story about his six-year-old namesake whose life is changed for good when he sees Barbra Streisand in the Hello, Dolly! movie.

Sam Harrison in Love is Only Love (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

This seismic event sets him off on a quest to devour as many musicals as he can whilst searching for true love as he grows from a ballet-dancing kid in a polka dot rara skirt clumsily throwing himself around to ‘The Carousel Waltz’ to a sporty adolescent who fantasises along to ‘Treat Me Rough’ (from Girl Crazy, just one of the films and shows he knows so much about that he’d surely slay it on Mastermind).

He hones in on a fellow teen named Marc because Marc is “so gorgeous” – which makes the rather gorgeous David Seadon-Young perfect casting.

And what a talent Seadon-Young is. Billed in the programme as “Marc & everyone else” he’s equally convincing as an 11-year-old Aussie as he is a 21-year-old Scotsman, plus both Sam and Marc’s very understanding parents.

David Seadon-Young and Sam Harrison in Love is Only Love (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

There are echoes of Netflix’s Heartstopper here (although Love is Only Love, which first played The Other Palace in 2018 and the Pride Festival in 2019, came first) as the blokey Marc begins to question his sexuality.

And there’s a lovely dance that recalls the ending of Beautiful Thing, which Sam rightly recalls as being one of the few gay male love stories that doesn’t end in heartache.

Nor does Love is Only Love, although there are trials and tribulations along the way alongside moments of supreme happiness – the latter never more so than when Sam sings ‘I Can’t Stop Talking About Him’ from Let’s Dance as a giddy whirl of lust and love in complete and utter (pardon the pun) gay abandon.

David Seadon-Young and Sam Harrison in Love is Only Love (Photo: Manuel Harlan)

Beautifully sung by both Harrison and Seadon-Young and acted from the heart, it’s a show that seldom hits a bum note. I for one sure share Harrison’s Barbra obsession, although oddly her ‘Love is Only Love’ song that presumably inspired the show’s title isn’t featured.

Streisand herself said that after such heartbreakers as The Way We Were and The Prince of Tides she made The Mirror Has Two Faces because the girl finally got the guy. The guy gets the guy in Love is Only Love and that’s just as it should be.

Rating: 4/5

Love is Only Love is at The Other Palace until 15 May. For more information visit theotherpalace.co.uk and for great deals on tickets and shows click here.