Porn and propaganda

Porn — The Musical
Theatre 503, until 1 May

Posh
Royal Court, until 22 May

Here’s the rule. Provocative title equals lousy show. The playbill Porn — The Musical filled my heart with misgivings as I made the long trek south of the Thames to a venue at a Battersea boozer. The room above the pub was huge and empty, but the theatre wasn’t here but higher up, via a trapdoor, wedged in under the beery roof-eaves. A fug of lavender and sawdust hung over the creaking benches and the stage was the size of a card-table. As I took my seat, a furry insect expired in midair and landed in the retro hairstyle just ahead of me. A moth in a beehive.

Then the show began and everything perked up. The storyline is a parody of a parody, a boy-meets-girl fairy tale involving a penniless Maltese, Stefan, who falls for a porn queen in LA. The fusion of seedy smut and puckish comedy is divinely inspired, and the show gleefully mocks every target available, including itself. The narrator is a suave curmudgeon who can’t disguise his contempt for the script. And he has some of the best lines. ‘Fate was about to unload over Stefan like a football team on a lapdancer.’

Apart from its wit and infectious zest, the show has one additional advantage: it adores the genre it mocks. And by taking a paradoxically chaste approach it scores extra comedy points. Porn is alluded to, and pastiched, but the full-frontal bodycount stands at a coy zero. A striptease is performed behind improvised screens held up by cast members who signal outraged virtue by widening their eyes and covering their open mouths with splayed fingers. The tunes are good, bordering on excellent.