It has taken over 10 years for the King’s Head in Islington to move from its historic pub backroom to a purpose-built bunker next door. Surely, in all that time, a better play could have been found to inaugurate the new space than this unfunny comedy of gay manners. Despite a few good lines and a potentially intriguing scenario, this tale of four egomaniacs swapping partners and violent blows against a backdrop of swanky Californian excess feels phony from start to finish.
Writers Shaun McKenna and Andrew Van Sickle claim to have been inspired by Hollywood screwball comedies, Shakespeare and Aristophanes. But the plot here is a basic retread of Noel Coward’s Private Lives, without the women or the charm. Preening Disney lawyer Conor has married young, needy English runner Mal. British starchitect Robbie – who had a passionate, addictive, violently dysfunctional marriage with Conor – is now with the butch, grumpy and previously straight garden designer Rayyan.
Horror of horrors, they all meet at an artist friend’s private view: the old flames light out together, the wronged younger partners trail after them. Coward’s scenario is embellished with contemporary gay dynamics: heteronormative monogamists versus those who like to get their “f***s in a row”; twinks and daddies; sadomasochists and romantics.
Which would be interesting if the characters were remotely convincing. Unfortunately, they flick from one emotional state to another – kissy-face to headbutt, vicious repudiation to lust – without a moment’s thought or consistency. And my god are these raging narcissists annoying; everything they do and say is overlaid with a preening, self-conscious, eye-rolling, cheek-tonguing veneer, especially the jokes. It’s as if McKenna and Van Sickle fed ChatGPT on an exclusive diet of Sex and the City then told it to make the characters gay men on the West Coast.
It's relatively short at 100 minutes and Bronagh Lagan’s direction is brisk until the final, agonizingly ridiculous scene. But there’s a stiffness and awkwardness here, recognisable from every production where the actors and the director know that the supposedly funny lines aren’t funny, the story doesn’t make sense, and the characters don’t feel real, however hard they try to sell them. I’m not naming the cast members, because none of them is very good, and it’s possibly not their fault.
Founded by the late Dan Crawford, the old King’s Head had more misses than hits in its eccentric 54-year history. But its atmospherically squalid auditorium and ability to spot star writers, directors and actors ensured it a place in London’s always-mutating theatre culture. It’d be hard for the bland new venue, situated four floors below the Islington Square shopping mall, to recapture that spirit. Still, after Exhibitionists, the only way is up.
King's Head Theatre, to February 10; kingsheadtheatre.com
