Review: Four Play, Wardrobe Theatre

It’s a simple enough premise: boy meets boy, they fall in love and spend seven (and a half) blissfully happy years together, until their lack of sexual experience starts to drive them apart.

Enter Michael (Cudjoe Asare), a handsome Facebook acquaintance in an open relationship with Andrew (James Schofield), who might just be able to offer the ‘experience’ each of them desires – but just as a one-off mind.

What seemed like a quick fix sparks a chain reaction that forces both couples to explore their own desires, loyalties and whether monogamy is for them.

Tuesday is opening night for Four Play, showing at the Wardrobe Theatre as part of the widely-acclaimed Directors’ Cuts season, a programme of contemporary theatre presented by the four graduating directors from the Old Vic Theatre School, and the audience, which spans several generations, is in a state of high anticipation.

Against a simple backdrop, the four-man play delivers beautifully crafted British comedy at its best, with fast-paced, contemporary dialogue, killer one-liners and the small asides – in the form of a look here, a raised eyebrow there – that raise the play to the very top of its genre.

The first scene sees Rafe (Marco Young) explain to Michael, with painstaking British awkwardness, that after seven (and a half) years of relationship bliss, his and boyfriend Pete’s (Max Dinnen) lack of sexual experience is becoming an issue. The couple proposition Michael with the idea that one night with him could be the answer to their problems.

Sat beside Rafe, Pete’s contributions are limited to facial expressions, which – along with Michael’s casual one-liners – are delivered seamlessly to maximise comic effect.

Breezing onto the stage, hoover in hand, Andrew is an instantly likeable, casually affectionate character, with, as it later transpires, a number of insecurities about his open relationship with Michael, who he adores.

Using wooden chairs as props, the four men lead the audience through a tangled web of sexual desire, betrayal and love, with a healthy dose of bitchy asides, contemporary comic references and sex scenes, played to create just the right level of delicious discomfort among the audience.

That the story centres around two gay couples is not shied away from, with Grindr getting a few prominent mentions and plenty of subtle (and not-so-subtle) innuendos, but it is a play that examines relationships, betrayal, jealousy and love in a way that is highly relatable to everyone.

Four Play director Liam Blain

Director Liam Blain says that part of what drew him to Jake Brunger’s script was that fact that it “so beautifully normalises same-sex relationships”  – and the four actors do the words justice in every sense of the way.

A brilliant romp of fast-paced comedy, the play has some beautiful tender moments towards the end, leaving audience members with a lump in their throat and tears of laughter streaming down their faces.

No one puts a foot wrong in the full 90 minutes, which is a breath of fresh air and a joy to watch from start to finish. Four Play is a true testament to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and a new generation of great British comedies.

Four Play is at the Wardrobe Theatre until Saturday, May 12. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.oldvic.ac.uk/whats-on/four-play.html.

Read more: Preview: Four Play, Wardrobe Theatre