F*cking Men ☆☆
After a series of sell-out runs in London, Edinburgh and Dublin, F*cking Men returns to the King’s Head Theatre for a strictly limited three-week run, celebrating the show’s critically acclaimed history at the venue featuring new cast members.
Inspired by the classic play La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler in 1897, Tony Award-winning writer Joe DiPietro reinvents the interweaving tale of lust and longing for present-day gay relationships, a snapshot of encounters between pairs of characters before, during and after a sexual encounter.
The characters flow over all levels of society and it shows how sexual contact overrides all class boundaries. In total it seems as if seen from the viewpoint of an older, experienced and privileged man looking back at youth.
Of the three new actors, August Ohlsson is making his professional stage debut here and he managed to bring a lot of fun and emotion to his different parts and his Scottish and German accents very accurate and convincing, his ‘public schoolboy’ not so but very amusing!
Considering there were originally more actors covering all the characters the three guys do very well but the constant costume and accent changes were distracting especially as not all the encounters were comedic but some serious subjects were being addressed. It tried to deal with too many issues and the scenes were short and fast which meant that the audience was never bored. However, as a result, nothing was examined in depth and some characters became a little like caricatures.
As a piece of short entertainment (60mins) it worked well but failed in its aim to have a moral and social relevance.
Playwright Joe DiPietro Director Mark Barford
Associate Director Richard De Lisle
Cast: Liam Darby, Richard De Lisle, August Ohlsson
Performance Dates 16 May 2018 – 2 June 2018, 8.45pm no performances 21 or 28 May matinees on 20, 27 May and 2 June at 4.45pm http://www.kingsheadtheatre.com/
Review: PETER HARRINGTON