JOCK NIGHT ☆☆☆☆☆
Hope Theatre Company
King’s Head, Islington, London

Adam Zane’s background is in verbatim theatre, and that commitment to verisimilitude is on clear display in his first full-length non-verbatim play, JOCK NIGHT. In the programme notes he details the months of researching chemsex, interviewing men whose lives have been affected by it. Whilst these characters onstage are fictional, amalgams of the many people he spoke to, they are so well-drawn that it feels intensely real.

Even the sex feels intensely real as the actors writhe on the bed in jockstraps. The direction, like the writing, is exceptional. All five actors are very good, embodying such distinctively different characters particularly Adam Waddington’s Daddy/Ben, and Sam Goodchild’s Kam.

The play tells the story of friendship amongst five gay men in Manchester. They’re all pretty much addicted to crystal meth and GHB and like to party and play hard. They frequent the Gay Village and in particular a club night called JOCKS.

Every one of the men on stage wears their jocks to great effect and the King’s Head felt even hotter than usual as the play progressed.

The timeframe covers seven months in the lives of these fuck buddies/friends/lovers. The story is poignant and apposite and whilst there are no great surprises, it contains emotional depth and savage wit.

The 80 minutes rattles along and the simple set, with a much-used double-bed, is used effectively along with great music and very tight direction. My one criticism is the implausible happy ending, but then I’m not known for liking happy endings unless they’re on a massage table.

Do try and catch this play, though. As a Mancunian, I found the location of my home town a refreshing change from the usual London-centric narratives – a comment you might find a bit rich coming from the author of London Triptych, but there you have it. It was great hearing strong Northern accents.

Zane’s writing and direction are impressive and whilst I’m not normally a fan of such realism, here it felt right because the story being told and the world depicted in it are very far from the mainstream.

https://www.kingsheadtheatre.com/ Until May 11th 2019

Review by Jonathan Kemp

Queerguru London Correspondent Jonathan Kemp writes fiction and non-fiction and teaches creative writing at Middlesex University. He is the author of two novels – London Triptych (2010), which won the 2011 Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award, and Ghosting (2015) – and the short-story collection Twentysix. (2011, all published by Myriad Editions). Non-fiction works include The Penetrated Male (2012) and Homotopia?: Gay Identity, Sameness and the Politics of Desire (2015, both Punctum Books).