The stage adaptation of The Line of Beauty is based on Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel, but not having read it, I approached the play without comparison or expectation.
Upon being seated, and before the play begins, the audience is confronted with an intriguing set design (Christopher Oram), symbolic of war, history, romanticism and death. It is a massive, defiant backdrop of cratered rock, both impenetrable and reminiscent of the London Roman Wall built to secure the city from invasion c.200-300AD. The wall seems to mock the fragility of mankind, comfortable in its ability to survive all manner of human folly long after these two-legged fools cease to exist. And as the drama begins at the dawning of the AIDS crisis in 1983, we are confronted with a plethora of wealthy Tory characters filled with empty speech and little dramatic import, but completely relatable to the ship of wealth-laden fools who disturb the global tides of 2025.
First, there is 22-year-old protagonist Nick Guest (Jasper Talbot), a new lodger to the stylish Fedden family residence in South Kensington. He’s been invited to stay by his old Oxford mate, Toby Fedden (Leo Suter), who is already moving out. Toby needs to escape from his Tory Minister father, Gerald Fedden (Charles Edwards), and his chirpy, but vacuous-headed mother, Rachel (Claudia Harrison). Nick will also be required on occasion to babysit for Cat (Ellie Bamber), Toby’s younger sister, who self-harms and can’t be left alone while her parents are away at the weekend. This arrangement works for Nick, who’s just enrolled as a postgraduate student at University College London to complete a thesis on the novels of Henry James.
Nick, an affable young male cruising for sex through discreet ads in newspaper columns, meets practical-minded Black boyfriend Leo Charles (Alistair Nwachukwu), who works for the council, rides a bicycle and lives with his mother Mrs. Charles (Doreene Blackstock), and sister Rosemary (Francesca Amewudah-Rivers) in Willesden. Leo has a lingering cold, a precursor to what is about to happen in the play’s second act.
Not sure whose idea it was to give Leo such a deliberate, prowling stride as he wheels his bike across the stage. The physicality felt mismatched with the emotional dynamic between Nick and Leo — Nick appears more forward, while Leo remains guarded and restrained. This comes to pass when Nick meets Wani Ouradi (Arty Froushan), a character with a dangerous sizzle and irrepressible sex appeal. Froushan’s portrayal of the mega-rich closeted-gay Wani brings a fresh energy to the play, and he is definitely an actor to watch.
The sex scenes between Nick and Leo, and later between Nick and Wani, feel overly literal and repetitive. Is there not a more inventive way to depict intimacy and desire between men on stage without resorting to such explicit physicality? Subtlety can often be more powerful and evocative, and this goes for heterosexual and homosexual reenactments of sex acts. Please, can some dramaturg somewhere have a look at Harvey Fierstein’s 1982 Torch Song Trilogy, where groups of gay males have anonymous sex on a completely darkened stage. It was tantalising, innovative, and, to this day, remains unsurpassed in its power to express the homosexual experience.
The Line of Beauty’s sound design (Adam Cork) definitely does its job, but the audience might’ve enjoyed even more of a Grace Jones/Robert Palmer feel wafting through the play. Maybe it’s just my narrow point of view, having worked on Wall Street throughout the 1980s with spectacular big hair and wearing pin-striped, shoulder-padded navy blue suits. The play never really captures the glitz and the tragedy of a period that had young men talking of building their own coffins, so prevalent was the AIDS epidemic in Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs, but less so in Thatcher’s UK.
The Line of Beauty is a tough play with a plethora of characters fighting to dominate each scene and each with a big story to tell. Director Michael Grandage manages to control his unruly crew and maintain the play’s fluidity, all the while allocating time for each character to push through the sometimes inane dialogue and celebrate the essence of their being. For all its flaws, The Line of Beauty is a play that needs to be digested and then warrants a second viewing.
Review by Loretta Monaco
I can’t explain it. I can’t explain any of it to you. The line of beauty which led me to him… to here.
London. Summer, 1983.
Nick Guest moves into the grand Notting Hill home of his university friend Toby — and into the dazzling world of Toby’s father Gerald, a newly elected Tory MP, his elegant wife Rachel, and their troubled daughter Cat. From private gardens to country estates, glittering parties to political dinners, Nick is swept up in a world of money, power and privilege. A world that promises everything — and exacts a cost.
As he pursues beauty in all its forms — aesthetic, erotic, aspirational — Nick finds himself caught between the freedoms of desire and the rigid boundaries of class, sexuality and public image in a rapidly changing Britain.
Cast – Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, Ellie Bamber, Doreene Blackstock, Charles Edwards, Arty Froushan, Claudia Harrison, Matt Mella, Hannah Morrish, Alistair Nwachukwu. Rpbert Portal, Leo Suter, Jasper Talbot
Alan Hollinghurst – Author of Original Novel
Jack Holden – Adaptor
Michael Grandage – Director
Christopher Oram – Set & Costume Designer
Howard Hudson – Lighting Designer
Adam Cork – Sound Designer & Composer
Ben Wright – Movement &Intimacy Director
Sophie Holland CSA – Casting Director
Carole Hancock – Hair, Wigs & Make-up
THE LINE OF BEAUTY
Almeida Theatre
21 October to 29 November 2025
