Interesting times at Soho Theatre. One of its outstanding shows of last year, Fleabag, was an offbeat Gothic love story written by and starring Phoebe Waller-Bridge. The director of Fleabag, Vicky Jones, has penned another offbeat Gothic love story. And it stars Waller-Bridge. The action plunges us into the weird, manipulative love life of beautiful Jo and her slick older lover Harry. Up goes the curtain and they’re copulating to porn while sharing a bag of Cheesy Wotsits. Harry’s old flame Kerry bursts in and announces that she’s been raped. Harry and Jo console her, rather perfunctorily, and then use her distress to start swapping cynical, sneering accusations about their own relationship.
Already, the audience is gripped. Is this play treating sexual violence as comedy? It looks like it. Kerry, under harsh questioning from Jo, reveals that her ‘rape’ allegation refers to a late-night quickie with her boyfriend for which she gave no explicit consent. Kerry asks Harry to help her get home and Jo advises her to ‘take a dodgy cab, get yourself proper raped, put things in perspective’. Crikey. Not only is sexual abuse being used for larks but the wisecracking characters are female.
The script takes us further into the messed-up love triangle between Jo, Kerry and Harry. All the crooked sources of romance are dissected with scathing wit and frankness: lust and jealousy, fear of boredom, the craving for children, the erotic thrills of recreational violence. It’s a hell of a ride and every moment is enhanced by the amazing performance of Waller-Bridge. Her gift for naturalistic comedy, her searching intelligence and her melancholy glibness come together so forcefully that she risks making the work of her colleagues look a bit ‘thought-out’.
A couple of criticisms spring to mind.
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