A life less ordinary

"I've read opposite three Alexanders in three days!" laughs actor Fraser Ayres, who plays the title character in Stuart: a Life Backwards. "But it's kept me on my toes."

Written by Bafta-winner Jack Thorne, Stuart... is based on Alexander Masters' award-winning 2005 book of the same name. In it, Masters charts his relationship with Stuart Shorter, a homeless man who exploded into his well-meaning liberal life. It's already had an acclaimed TV adaptation, starring Tom Hardy and Benedict Cumberbatch. But the play's Edinburgh run has had a shaky start. Will Adamsdale—who won the Perrier Award in 2004 for Jackson's Way, and plays Alexander—injured his back in the first week, forcing him to withdraw. Some quick-fire cast reshuffles, incredibly, has kept the show firmly on the road until Adamsdale's return. The Spirit of the Fringe lives on.

"Actually, one of my closest friends was homeless when I met him," reveals Ayres. "His name was Mark, and he used to be at the Tesco Metro in Angel. And one day I was coming back from the theatre and I was like, dude, do you want some food? Nine years we've known each other now. So coming to this play I had my own experience of bridging that gap between those two worlds."

And with that, the actor puts his finger on the tension at the heart of the play. There's a memorable scene in which Stuart (played by Ayres) first enters Alexander's house. His body racked by a severe form of muscular dystrophy, his chaotic and abusive upbringing inscribed in his unpredictable mannerisms, his edgy language, and his filthy clothing, he disrupts the earnest, middle-class tidiness enjoyed by Alexander and his wife.

It's an awkward moment – one Ayres knows first-hand: "After four years of knowing this guy, there I am in my home with Mark and his 'troubled background' and my mum, the person I love more than anyone. Yeah, there was some weirdness to negotiate! And Mark was like, 'we've found ourselves in a place here, haven't we!' And I was like, 'we have, haven't we Mark!'. And so there was the three of us negotiating this as my mum cooked mince and tatties! But if you brush over that moment and try and say there's nothing happening here, then that conversation never gets to be had. And we need to have that conversation."

"Tourism", is the wonderful word Ayres uses to describe it, "that kind of liberalism. You know, I'm doing well so here let me help you. And that's warm and lovely because if we didn't do that there wouldn't be a charity on the planet!". But it's uninvolved, detached. Like Ayres himself, Alexander Masters was forced to "get his feet wet." "He goes from tourist to participant, and then it becomes about this relationship between them both," Ayres explains.

It makes for a fascinating story, not least because of Stuart's extraordinary character. Both Ayres and writer Thorne—who also wrote acclaimed TV dramas The Fades and This is England '88—talk enthusiastically about their love for a person who, as Thorne puts it, was "so self-aware and self-destructive – he's vivid and brilliant and wonderful".

The play, in reverse chronological order, charts Masters' attempts to discover what it was that made Stuart a troubled man – and, crucially, to tell it in a way that Stuart would want. "There's a line in the play about Alexander capturing Stuart. He says 'I think you were kind about me but not kind in the right way'." It's this challenge of "honouring Stuart", says Ayres, that makes the character such a joy to play.

Added to that, however, is the difficulty of playing a character with a severe form of muscular dystrophy – a task which Ayres does "sensationally" according to Thorne (he's absolutely right) but one, we suggest, which runs the risk of insensitivity. "Do you know what, I think you may have broken the show, because I'd never thought of that! Oh Jesus!" laughs Ayres.

He describes instead giving his body certain instructions: "I began by ascertaining what the condition does to a sufferer's body and what the effects are of that. So there are points that can't move, that are isolated. It's about going, 'right, this leg can only move these ranges for the show', and to give your body this set of given circumstances to then actually play. And that enables me to get under the skin of the condition, because you're then imposing the condition upon yourself for two hours."

It's an approach clearly informed by Thorne's experience of working with disabled actors: "I've worked with a lot of disabled actors playing parts, but never with a non-disabled actor playing a disabled part. If you're telling a story with disabled characters in it, you tell it right. And telling that story well, giving an actor enough so they can work but not being too dominated by it was really important. There was quite a lot of disabled awareness in the room."

And what of Mark? "Now he's a painter and decorator in Bristol," Ayres explains. Be it dealing with homelessness, disability, or stepping outside of middle-class comfort zones (Ayres also runs a promotions company helping to find talent from disadvantaged backgrounds), this is a play built on a foundation of participation, and not tourism. It really shows.