EXHIBITIONISTS at the King’s Head Theatre

★★

“For the most part, the play paddles in the shallow waters of caricature and stereotype”

The King’s Head was the UK’s oldest pub theatre when it closed its doors last August. Less than six months later – though years in the planning – the doors reopen to the new purpose-built space. The site is steeped in theatrical history, and many of us stepping through the doors on opening night for the inaugural production carry fond memories or have personal connections with the old space. The spirit of many great names in British theatre still lingers, some of them now ghosts. Watching perhaps. We can only speculate as the evidence is whitewashed over, and little remains, despite directly connecting to the old dressing room. None of the atmosphere has crossed the threshold. No memorabilia. No link to its colourful history. No echoes from the past. Nevertheless, as we descend the stairwells down to the subterranean black box, the anticipation is palpable.

“Exhibitionists” is an apt play to open the first season. In line with the LGBTQ+ leanings the venue has adopted over the years, it also harks back to a romantic golden age of twentieth century theatre. In their programme notes, writers Shaun McKenna and Andrew Van Sickle, reference Terence Rattigan and Alan Ayckbourn, while also drawing parallels with the screwball wit of Hollywood’s Charles Lederer. Bizarrely no mention is made of Noël Coward, even though the plot of “Exhibitionists” is lifted, lock, stock, and barrel from Coward’s thirties comedy of manners, ‘Private Lives’. Almost. Except it lacks the manners, or Coward’s mastery of the language. The subversiveness of Coward’s sexual identity was reflected in his plays – particularly ‘Private Lives’ – but as well as being a closet gay play, it is a classic that maintains universal appeal. “Exhibitionists” is overt, brash and blatant, but its focus is much too narrow.

Set in the San Francisco art world, Conor (Ashley D Gayle) and Robbie (Robert Rees) are living separate lives having split from their volatile, open relationship years previously. They both now have new, younger partners. Conor is with upcoming film-maker Mal (Jake Mitchell-Jones) while Robbie has hooked up with the heteroflexible Rayyan (Rolando Montecalvo). The two couples stumble upon one another at an art exhibition. The exes reunite, reignite and relocate swiftly to a nearby motel run by the implausibly eager Sebastian (Øystein Lode) with the new partners in hot pursuit. Squabbles and sex alternate as the farce unravels.

“The performers do well to counteract the faithless writing but cannot escape the cartoon landscape in which they are trapped”

The premise is predictable and, for all its profanity, not at all subversive. For the most part, the play paddles in the shallow waters of caricature and stereotype. Which is surprising, but also unsettling in that it seems to be unwittingly marginalising the culture it represents. There is little sense of celebration. The in-jokes jar, as though written by an outsider looking in, which renders the piece exclusive, eradicating its wider appeal in one foul swoop. Meanwhile, promiscuity and predatory behaviour are promoted in a way that, if presented in any other environment, would be condemned.

The performers do well to counteract the faithless writing but cannot escape the cartoon landscape in which they are trapped. Bronagh Lagan’s direction moves the action snappily, encumbered however by superfluous entrances and exits (which become as repetitive as the dialogue); and more so by the poor sightlines created by the venue’s raked seating.

“Exhibitionists” is a rather unsubtle revival of a delicately intelligent original. A poor man’s Coward. For half a century the King’s Head has paved the way for pub theatre. The previously shabby auditorium has attracted top writers, directors and actors throughout its eclectic and eccentric history. The atmosphere hasn’t crossed over to the new venue, and the opening show is not one to draw it in. The ghosts will want a new space to haunt. Let us hope the audiences don’t follow them because, with time on its side, the King’s Head will recapture its soul, and our hearts.

EXHIBITIONISTS at the King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 8th January 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Geraint Lewis

Previously reviewed at this venue:

DIARY OF A GAY DISASTER | ★★★★ | July 2023

THE BLACK CAT | ★★★★★ | March 2023

THE MANNY | ★★★ | January 2023

FAME WHORE | ★★★ | October 2022

THE DROUGHT | ★★★ | September 2022

BRAWN | ★★ | August 2022

LA BOHÈME | ★★★½ | May 2022

FREUD’S LAST SESSION | ★★★★ | January 2022

BEOWULF: AN EPIC PANTO | ★★★★ | November 2021

TENDER NAPALM | ★★★★★ | October 2021

EXHIBITIONISTS

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★★★½

“The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off.”

“Turning you out? What an old-fashioned idea!” the power-hungry property developer Marion exclaims at one point in Owners. Of course, what the play sets out to prove is that it’s not an old-fashioned idea at all, but a painfully immediate one: both in 1972, when Caryl Churchill first wrote it, and now, in Stella Powell-Jones’ production at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Owners is concerned with property: with having and being had. Clegg wants a son, wants a butcher’s shop, wants Marion, who wants power, who wants Alec, who wants — maybe nothing at all. As Marion ruthlessly develops her London properties, she sets her sights on the flat where Alec is living with his pregnant wife. She also sets her sights on their unborn child. Owners is a play about the need to possess, but it is also a play about the need to be possessed. As it unfolds, sinews of desire stretch and flex between the cast, as they separate and come together, tangled in ever darker threads.

The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off. The set, designed by Cat Fuller, is a stroke of genius, with a panorama of doors pressing claustrophobically in on the little family. Fuller uses the tiny space of the theatre’s stage to her advantage. Throughout the piece, everyone vies for exactly the same tiny patch of hotly contested real estate, as a series of hinges and compartments turn one flat into the next. It also means that, even when one person’s life is carefully hinged away, it is still ‘present’ on-stage. All these lives stack on top of each other in a suffocating palimpsest that is extremely effective.

What is initially identifiable as something almost in the vein of farce, grows mesmerizingly misshapen and grotesque as the play leads us down darker avenues. This is underscored by increasingly sinister interludes of music (Sasha Howe and Max Pappenheim) and lighting (Chuma Emembolu) during scene changes, before the lights come back up and we revert to the brightly lit family moment. The sense of something dark and inarticulate shadowing beneath the mundane works very well, especially as Owners gathers speed and becomes more confident in its own surreal cynicism. By the end, it eschews the comfortable escape-routes that something ultimately closer to farce might provide, and instead embraces a grim cannibalistic quality that makes for some beautiful moments of dialogue. Ryan Donaldson as Alec delivers a stunningly haunting hospital scene, and Laura Doddington is incredible as the bullish, smarting Marion (“be quick, be clean, be top, be best”), and a personal highlight.

While the themes are still strikingly relevant, the production shies away from what could be a more current exploration of them. The choice to maintain the 70s setting so distinctly through music and costume (Agata Odolczyk) is visually very effective, but also serves to buffer the play slightly, making it a more comfortable watch. When Clegg the butcher charges a customer just 20p for a pound of mince, a titter goes up from the audience: this is not our world, really, then, and we can breathe a sigh of relief. In the second act, however, when the grim surrealism is allowed more space to unfold, Owners does begin to bite more. Ultimately, though frustratingly lacking in urgency, this is a well-executed piece that leaves you heading back to your cold flat and your rented room with a pit in your stomach.

EXHIBITIONISTS at the King’s Head Theatre

★★

“For the most part, the play paddles in the shallow waters of caricature and stereotype”

“The performers do well to counteract the faithless writing but cannot escape the cartoon landscape in which they are trapped”

EXHIBITIONISTS at the King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 8th January 2024

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Geraint Lewis

Previously reviewed at this venue:

EXHIBITIONISTS

EXHIBITIONISTS

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

★★★½

“The production is deceptively complex and skilfully carried off.”

OWNERS at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 18th October 2023

by Anna Studsgarth

Photography by Steve Gregson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Owners

Owners