Macabre knockabout

The Royal Court’s at it again.

The Royal Court’s at it again. The boss, Dominic Cooke, likes to place his theatre at the disposal of Sloaney young princesses with an itch to write. It’s a great policy — mad, innovative, unpredictable and at times revelatory. Some of these women are seriously talented. Trouble is, Mr Cooke has now glutted the market with a particular brand of upper-class angst. Every month or two we’re invited to witness yet another dark sexual melodrama featuring posh birds in distress.

The latest, by Penelope Skinner, takes us to East Anglia where we meet frustrated Becky, two months pregnant, and her elaborately tedious husband John, an eco-prig and all-round worry guts, who’s gone off sex. ‘I don’t want to kill the baby!’ Becky starts flirting with the plumber, then has an adulterous tumble with Oliver, the village stud. To keep the fun going they turn to role play. She dresses as Lolita and demands a threesome. His fantasies have a weirder tinge. Disguised as a rapist and armed with a lock-knife, he breaks into her kitchen one evening and ravishes her on the draining board while her husband, half-asleep upstairs, calls down for a hot chocolate. ‘You OK down there?’ he asks politely as his wife stifles orgasmic squeals in the arms of her masked seducer.

That’s the mood throughout — silly, charming, crude, insubstantial. Romola Garai, distractingly beautiful, gives a decent showing as Becky, while Dominic Rowan — tufty chest, violent leer — makes a very convincing bit-on-the-side.

Skinner might try harder with her symbolism. Malfunctioning pipes in Becky’s cottage are a crude emblem of marital failure. The initial point of contact between the lovers — a new bike — is equally short of finesse.