Tag Archives: Coming Clean

Absurb Person Singular

Coming Clean

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

Trafalgar Studios

Coming Clean

Coming Clean

Trafalgar Studios

Reviewed โ€“ 10th January 2020

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

 

โ€œAdam Spreadbury-Maherโ€™s production is atmospheric, moving and hugely enjoyableโ€

 

Screamingly funny and surprisingly moving, Coming Clean is an eighties anthem to love, friendship and the pain of infidelity. The play premiered in 1982, at the end of the more carefree pre-AIDS era when gay men didnโ€™t have to think about that kind of danger. Itโ€™s a domestic drama, centred on the life of Tony and Greg, a couple who have what appears to be a stable non-monogamous relationship. Their neighbour and friend William is a party animal and disco queen, cruising and fucking his way round Londonโ€™s gay scene. He is played with a glorious camp panache by Elliot Hadley, who also manages to convey the warmth and vulnerability beneath Williamโ€™s outrageous surface. Hadley also makes a hilarious appearance, at the end of the play, as Jurgen, a leather clad German who Tony has brought home for sex. Tony and Greg, played by Lee Knight and Stanton Plummer-Cambridge, are a believable couple who live in Gregโ€™s Kentish Town flat. Their fifth anniversary is coming up and all seems to be well until Tony hires a cleaner. When the cleaner arrives he turns out to be Robert, an attractive out of work actor. And we are on our way to a love triangle.

Lee Knight is superb as Tony, deeply in love with Greg but frustrated by his role as the one who does the housework and his problems with his writing. He is butterfly-like in his subtle mood shifts, becoming a little different depending who he is with, enjoying Williamโ€™s camp bravado and Gregโ€™s stable strength. Stanton Plummer-Cambridgeโ€™s Greg is focussed and taciturn; he canโ€™t tell a joke and is irritated when things donโ€™t go his way. But the two men are OK together, despite some sexual issues, until Robert arrives in their lives. Jonah Rzeskiewicz gives Robert a young, almost puppy like, enthusiasm and a pinch of endearing nervousness. He seems too sweet to be the cause of the pain to come.

The action all takes place in the flat, a perfect reincarnation of an eighties pad, created by designer Amanda Mascarenhas. From the rug on the floor to the Thriller poster on the wall itโ€™s an evocation of a world when a pint of beer cost 90p and Kentish Town was an affordable place to live. The eighties music, and the classical records on the record player keep us firmly in the right time and place. Adam Spreadbury-Maherโ€™s production is atmospheric, moving and hugely enjoyable. It is also nostalgically sad, because from our twenty-first century viewpoint we can see the looming shadow of the coming AIDS epidemic and the terrible suffering it brought to the gay community.

Kevin Elyotโ€™s writing is sharp and witty and, although he uses some standard tropes, a partner returning home early, only to find his lover โ€˜at itโ€™ with someone else, there is also a depth and understanding of the pain of infidelity that, with credit to Knightโ€™s portrayal, is almost visceral. There is surprisingly little reference to the difficulties of being gay in 1982, Tony and Gregโ€™s relationship being seemingly undisturbed by the outside world. It is only Williamโ€™s attack that introduces a harsher societal context to the work.

 

Reviewed by Katre

Photography by Ali Wright

 


Coming Clean

Trafalgar Studios until 1st February

 

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
A Hundred Words For Snow | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | March 2019
Admissions | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | March 2019
Scary Bikers | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | April 2019
Vincent River | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | May 2019
Dark Sublime | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | June 2019
Equus | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | July 2019
Actually | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | August 2019
The Fishermen | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…ยฝ | September 2019
A Day In The Death Of Joe Egg | โ˜…โ˜… | October 2019
The Girl Who Fell | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | October 2019

 

Click here to see our most recent reviews

 

Coming Clean

Coming Clean
โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

Trafalgar Studios

Coming Clean

Coming Clean

Trafalgar Studios

Reviewed โ€“ 11th January 2019

โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…

โ€œthere is a period charm, enhanced by Amanda Mascarenhasโ€™ design, the attention to detail of which is faultlessโ€

 

โ€œComing Cleanโ€, Kevin Elyotโ€™s first play premiered at the Bush Theatre nearly four decades ago. That it took until last summer to be revived, by Adam Spreadbury-Maher, at the Kingโ€™s Head Theatre is quite astonishing. Now at Trafalgar Studios, it can bask in the long-awaited attention it deserves. Predating, by a decade, his breakthrough play โ€œMy Night with Regโ€ (which covers much of the same ground) it consequently suffers from being branded as his โ€˜first promising playโ€™. Originally titled โ€œCosyโ€ โ€“ a pun on Mozartโ€™s opera which plays an important part โ€“ Elyot reluctantly compromised on the title but, thankfully, none of the material.

The play is set in a North London flat in 1982. Struggling writer Tony (Lee Knight) and his partner of five years, Greg (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge), seem to have the perfect relationship. Committed and in love, they are both open to one-night stands as long as they donโ€™t impinge on the relationship. Into their lives walks Robert (Tom Lambert), a โ€˜restingโ€™ actor doing a bit of cleaning on the side. It is no spoiler to reveal that cleaning is not the only service Robert does on the side, but the repercussions are what form the backbone of the drama.

Central to the drama is whether fidelity is both emotional or physical, or whether the two can be compartmentalised; and whether total honesty paradoxically damages a relationship or whether ignorance is bliss (a dichotomy that uncannily foreshadows the misleading misnomer of the โ€œDonโ€™t die of ignorance!โ€ campaign during the onset of AIDS). But it is a mistake to delve too deep. โ€œComing Cleanโ€™ is foremost a bittersweet comedy โ€“ and in my mind more sweet than bitter where the laughs outweigh the woe. The central charactersโ€™ neighbour, the donut-devouring William (Elliot Hadley), almost single-handedly holds the show together with bursts of colour and comedy. Hadleyโ€™s is an outrageously powerhouse performance with the lionโ€™s share of the best lines. He chides but cherishes Tony, a complex character movingly portrayed by Knight. There is an interesting dynamic between him and Plummer-Cambridgeโ€™s growling Greg, with shifts of balance that are eventually toppled by the dashing Robert. Lambert manages to tacitly show us that there is a more calculating undertow to the rippling clumsiness of his ingenue faรงade.

To call it a โ€˜gayโ€™ play is, like most labels, an ineffectual tag; the questions addressed apply to anybody and everybody. Take away the sometimes graphic references to their sexual practices and these characters can become as generic as the audience; which is all-encompassing. That is part of the beauty of Elyotโ€™s humour that overflows with sharp and brutally honest one-liners that we can all relate to. For that reason, the dialogue, too, crosses over into the present day with ease, never feeling dated. Instead, there is a period charm, enhanced by Amanda Mascarenhasโ€™ design, the attention to detail of which is faultless.

Nostalgia can often be confused with obsolescence. But Spreadbury-Maherโ€™s production shows that a refusal to buck to the trend of updating in no way lessens the impact of the material. Yes, it is rooted in the eighties and in the gay, male culture; yet it resonates beyond boundaries and becomes universal. Which is what defines great theatre.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Scott Rylander

 


Coming Clean

Trafalgar Studios until 2nd February

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Strangers in Between | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | January 2018
Again | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | February 2018
Good Girl | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | March 2018
Lonely Planet | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | June 2018
Two for the Seesaw | โ˜…โ˜… | July 2018
Silk Road | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | August 2018
Dust | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | September 2018
A Guide for the Homesick | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | October 2018
Hot Gay Time Machine | โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…โ˜… | November 2018

 

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com