“Buggers” Stages the Turbulent Love of Francis Bacon and George Dyer

Alistair Hall’s two-hander *Buggers* dramatizes the fraught relationship between 20th-century painter Francis Bacon and his lover-muse George Dyer. The production opened at the Pleasance venue during the Edinburgh festival season, employing a wordless opening sequence that blends wrestling-like physicality with erotic intimacy. Movement director Ken Nakajima’s choreography sustains a visceral threat throughout, while director Alice Wordsworth frames the action on a set that oscillates between a bohemian flat and a wet-room, complete with a toilet and tub. The narrative jumps across time, moving from the pair’s first night together in 1963 to Dyer’s death in a Paris hotel room in 1971, and frequently dissolves into fragmented, hallucinatory moments that convey mood through light and shadow rather than linear plot.

The Guardian

Francis Bacon, the Irish-born British painter known for his stark, emotionally charged canvases, met George Dyer, a working-class man, in the early 1960s. Their relationship, marked by intense eroticism, power-play, and mutual dependency, inspired a series of portraits that Bacon painted over the years. Dyer’s struggle with alcoholism and his eventual death in 1971 have been extensively documented in biographies and exhibition catalogues, underscoring the tragic dimension that the play seeks to capture.

The Guardian

• Alistair Hall – playwright, creator of the script based on estate documents and letters.

The Guardian

• Alice Wordsworth – director, responsible for the production’s pacing and visual tone.

The Guardian

• Ken Nakajima – movement director, choreographer of the play’s physical confrontations.

The Guardian

• Peter Clements – actor portraying George Dyer, delivering a performance described as both swaggering and vulnerable.

The Guardian

• [Actor playing Bacon] – assumes the role of Francis Bacon, embodying the painter’s volatile temperament.

The Guardian

The review characterizes the piece as “utterly fresh and arresting,” noting that its research-based foundation is enlivened by a focus on bodily expression and emotional cruelty. Clements’s portrayal of Dyer is highlighted for its nuance, capturing the shift from confident swagger to a fragile, alcohol-ridden figure. While the production occasionally drifts into opaque, memory-like sequences, the overall effect is described as hypnotic, with the final reading of Bacon’s portrait titles reinforcing a lingering sense of sorrow. The critic concludes that the play stands out as a compact yet powerful addition to the festival lineup.

The Guardian