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2012
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London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Description: Jamie Lloyd directs Alexi Kaye Campbell's drama, which explores changing attitudes to sexuality over a period of 50 years.
Trains: Tube: Sloane Square 
Phone: 0207565 5000
Website: www.royalcourttheatre.com
Hard times: Oliver (Bertie Carvel) Peter (Tim Steed) and Sylvia (Lyndsey Marshal)
Alexi Kaye Campbell has hit upon an ingenious, imaginative way of trying to dramatise the way in which sex law reform and liberalising of social attitudes have transformed the existence of gay men for the humane better. He interposes tense scenes in the 1958 lives of gay, mid-thirties Philip, his smitten lover Oliver and his wife Sylvia, with prophetic imaginings of the better times this trio might have led if they were of similar age in 2008.
Unfortunately, Campbell, whose first and sometimes caustically amusing play this is, peers through Time’s glass darkly. He implies gay life in 2008 is mainly concerned with sex as addiction. Even straight Sylvia has opted for sexual freedom and serves as Oliver’s sympathetic confidante. Campbell’s failure of perception owes much to his obsession with neurotic, effeminate Oliver (excellent Bertie Carvel), author of children’s stories and travel books in 1958, and 50 years later unbelievably relegated to work for a lad’s mag and as a Daily Mail feature writer.
Oliver’s 2008 obsession with brutal, masochistic sex causes the breakdown and betrayal of his relationship with Philip, who is reduced to peripheral status of long-suffering boy-friend.
The sexual psychology here seems unreliable, since Oliver would surely have been the dutiful home-maker, while JJ Feild’s sexy hunk Philip was everywhere tempted.
The 1950s scenes, rather over-packed with ominous dreams and epiphanies, are akin to sombre drawing room drama of the period. They ring far truer than those for 2008, even though in Jamie Lloyd’s uncomfortable production Philip and Oliver talk in Noel Coward’s staccato tones which were outdated even then. Lindsey Marshal’s genteel Sylvia, who in 1958 tacitly rebukes Oliver for sleeping with Philip in her bed, exudes politesse. She and Feild’s estate agent Philip have welcomed gangling, grinning Oliver, whom Carvel powerfully plays up to the neurotic, self-loathing hilt.
There’s a hint of male to male attraction but when Oliver’s child-like, desperate Oliver tries to persuade Feild’s repressed, self-deceiving Philip to resume their affair, the two actors stoke up an emotional blaze in a scene of virtual male-rape and humiliation. Feild’s piercing scream of shame, his spasms of violence and subsequent tearful breakdown, his grim stoicism when facing up to aversion therapy, define an extraordinary performance that unerringly captures the 1950s mood and its cruel, homophobic spirit.
Until 20 December (020 7565 5000)
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
"The sexual psychology here seems unreliable, since Oliver would surely have been the dutiful home-maker, while JJ Feild’s sexy hunk Philip was everywhere tempted."
Haven't seem the play yet, but perhaps the author was trying to see past stereotypes which may have prevailed in 1958 (and apparently still persist now among some). All I know, from my experience of 2008, is that you can't always judge a book by its cover...
- Karli, Tottenham, London
