COCK

J and M (not to be confused with their sordid doppelgängers S & M) have a problem: they love one another “like brothers”. Which is fine if you are brothers but not so if you are lovers, which they are and have been for many a year. As Chet Baker hauntingly sung: The Thrill Is Gone. Not so much for stockbroker M (a wickedly funny Johnny McKnight) who idolizes his square-jawed and rake-thin partner like “a trophy”, but more so for John (the only character with a name played with great subtlety by James Anthony Pearson) who after a chance meeting on his tube journey to work with the carefree and sensuous F (Isobel McArthur) has decided to take a walk on the wild side and explore his sexuality. Is he gay, straight, bisexual, confused, going through a phase? In the end, labels are unimportant. He’s cheating. Torn between two lovers. And as John says towards the end of the play, it is not what is nestled between your partner’s legs that is important, it is what lies in their heart and draws you in.

Framed within a square box of stark white light, with no set, no props and (with the exception of a tender head rest on a cold shoulder) no touching, director Andy Arnold’s stripped-back staging of Mike Bartlett’s Olivier Award-winning script (which gets its first UK airing since it debuted at the Royal Court in 2009 with Ben Whishaw and Andrew Scott in the leading roles) symbolises the pressure placed on individuals such as John who do not fit snugly into societal norms which label people according to strict definitions of sexuality and gender. There is much moralising, particularly towards the end when M’s father F (Vincent Friell) is wheeled on for no other reason than to impart worldly wisdom, crank up the tension and drive proceedings to a cliffhanger close. But this minor flaw is wonderfully counterbalanced by a conveyor belt of witty one-liners mainly from the acid tongue of Johnny McKnight whose acerbic delivery would give Mae West a run for her money. In the end, John is faced with a Harry Hill dilemma: I like cock and I like pussy, but which is better? There’s only one way to find out. Fight! Cock-fight!