Right from the start of Small Town Boys, there’s a sense of something different in the air. Even climbing the steps at Zoo Southside feels a bit like piling up one of those difficult-to-negotiate staircases at some dingy Cowgate club. As the audience enter, we become part of the action (bring your dancing shoes) and the cast of eight professional dancers are supplemented by a community cast that fill the stage. It’s clear that Thomas Small’s Dundee-based Shaper/Caper company is serious about engagement and inclusion; a burning desire to create, to process and to protest drives the urgency of this piece as much as the Hi-NRG beats of its fabulous soundtrack. 

As signalled by the title, the story is familiar: young gay man escapes to the big city and finds queer joy at Paradise (named after the iconic London club). But it’s the 1980s so the HIV/AIDS pandemic looms large. That’s ahead of us though, and the opening is pure delight, with deceptively simple, stripped-back choreography producing the kind of dancing we all secretly think we can do, given the right song and enough room on the dancefloor. Of course, we cannot, yet the ‘I could if I wanted to’ energy is another way to blur the boundaries between us mere mortals and the cast.

A section starring a set of toilet doors is hilarious and brilliantly inventive, while the solos and beautifully tender balletic pas de deux that set up the storyline are perfectly executed. The set incorporates a bank of TVs which signal change and ratchet up the tension as they broadcast news stories from the 80s. The infamous ‘tombstone’ HIV advert appears, mixed into a pounding disco beat that truly makes the hairs on your neck stand up. From here, there’s grief and outrage in equal measure, with the tiniest movements all embodied with passion, precision and power. 

Small demands a lot from the cast, and the acting required is occasionally a stretch, but each dancer is utterly convincing in their storytelling. It’s never less than wildly creative either and there’s always a detail to catch the eye: condoms, placards, messages written on the body. Beautifully danced and brilliantly conceived, this is an important lesson in queer history and (even if some younger folk seem confused by a Thatcher cameo) it’s gorgeous to see all ages being equally moved by its intensity and relevance.

Small Town Boys, Zoo Southside, until 17 August, 7.15pm.