It’s years since I saw anything as nasty as this: Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre reviewed

Cock was written by Mike Bartlett in 2009 while he was in Mexico at a drama conference. The title suggests a cockpit where three characters compete for sexual dominance. W, meaning Woman, is a childminder attracted to a gay man, John, who is thick but handsome and deeply involved with M, or Man. W adores John even though he can’t stand women. ‘They’re like water when you really want beer,’ he says, charmlessly. When they have sex she politely asks him not to treat her genitals ‘like a Travelodge’.

After a brief fling, W decides she wants to marry John and raise a family with him in domestic bliss. But John isn’t so sure. He describes his girlfriend to others as ‘tall, manly and with big hands’. And John’s real problem is M, his long-term partner. Should John dump him or not? To help him decide, he invites W to dinner with M at the flat they share. M’s hatred of women is far more pronounced than John’s and he unleashes a barrage of tawdry putdowns even before W arrives. Does she look like Ray Winstone? he asks. Or perhaps she resembles the girl in The Exorcist with the swivelling head.

Then the bell rings, ‘Open the door before she breaks it down,’ says M. The dinner party is a long, vicious interrogation of W by the loathsome and misogynistic M. And there’s a cameo appearance by M’s dad who shows up to throw in a few sexist banalities of his own. The standard of invective is feeble and the characters have to scream their lines at top volume to give the words any impact. At least half an hour of the play consists of thesps shrieking relentlessly at each other and damaging their vocal cords.