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Friday 9 January 2009

Lead us not into temptation

Blowing Whistles
Leicester Square Theatre

Faces in the Crowd
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court

Oh, what a gay play. The exhibitionist bravado of gay culture, its carnival antics and exuberant self-sufficiency convince us straight folk that we have nothing more to learn about this colourful subterranean neverland. Matthew Todd’s comedy is packed with welcome surprises. It opens with a pair of London swingers, Nigel and Jamie, awaiting a 17-year-old blind date trawled from an internet site. The boy turns out to be a blond-ringleted chav from Croydon, whose angelic looks and towerblock insouciance immediately confound their expectations. He’s bisexual, for one thing. ‘I like c**t,’ he tells the ogling queens. ‘I’m sure you do,’ says Jamie unruffled, ‘but I bet you couldn’t eat a whole one.’ After a night of passion, Jamie and Nigel are still individually attracted to the chav but the self-imposed rules of their swinging operations forbid further contact.

The play’s second half follows the emotional aftershocks as the older men are torn between resistance and surrender to the curly-headed temptation. This is the perilous chemistry of troilism. To triangulate a relationship will work only if the incoming element affects the existing elements in identical shades and modes of feeling. And that will never happen. What startled me was how familiar all this felt: if you take the Judy Garland posters out of a gay relationship you have a straight relationship. The joys of bed-hopping are exposed as transient and illusory, and open relationships feature all the hassle-free fun of open-heart surgery. The couple’s ‘rules’ turn out to have been inspired by the promiscuous, swaggering Nigel to impose his reckless tastes on the timid, apron-wearing Jamie and to provide emotional surety against Jamie’s jealousy.

More articles from: Lloyd Evans | this section

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