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Blowing Whistles

Published Friday 24 October 2008 at 15:20 by Mark Shenton

Matthew Todd’s affecting, provocative play - originally premiered as a full-length play at Croydon Warehouse in 2005 and subsequently seen at the now-demolished Sound Theatre in 2006 - now makes a highly deserved but bold move to a mainstream cross-over at the refurbished Leicester Square Theatre, without compromising on either its frank, explicit interactions - some of them nude - or the complicated set of emotions it embraces.

This is a play about three gay men: a 17-year-old on the cusp of growing up, a 37-year-old who refuses to do so, and a 32-year-old who finally wants to. It is the eve of the tenth anniversary of lovers Jamie (Paul Keating) and Nigel (Stuart Laing), and once again, Nigel is online, cruising the web for a casual date for them to enjoy together - and manages to lure delectable young Mark over.

But though it begins conventionally enough as a gay sex comedy - and Todd is particularly adept at some stinging, abrasively funny one-liners to propel it along its way - it is a play that subversively ambushes its audience, and its characters, to take both into darker, more thoughtful territory.

It takes a mature look at immaturity, and how the sex-on-demand culture that some gay men live by actually compromises their relationships - with each other as well as themselves. Not since Larry Kramer shone a blazingly self-critical eye on the gay lifestyle has a playwright dared to confront such issues so directly, dealing with frankness, fearlessness and thoughtfulness how a long-standing relationship finally implodes in the wake of those overpowering pressures.

It’s a play with big laughs, heart and balls (in every sense) - but unlike its lead character, thinks with its mind instead of its penis. Pete Nettell’s swift and sexy production is animated by a performance of touching depth by Paul Keating, appealing but all-too-recognisable vacuity by Stuart Laing and a highly promising debut from Daniel Finn as the young man facing an odyssey of his own.

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