There’s a moment in the third act of Coming Clean where writer and writing teacher Greg (Alexander Hulme) gives an assessment of his boyfriend and wannabe-writer, Tony’s, short story. On his reading, the story’s central character needs fleshing out before he starts behaving outrageously, if Tony wants readers to root for him. I can’t help feeling that the play itself falls down because, to me, it’s inexplicable that anyone would be interested in consistently grouchy Greg. He doesn’t like going to bars or parties or restaurants. His idea of a good night in is lecturing others about his useless students before announcing he’s too tired for sex. His character sorely needs fleshing out if an audience is to be convinced that good-natured but neurotic Tony (Yannick Budd) should fight to save his relationship with this loser. Instead, I find myself unconvinced that they could have made it to five years, and wanting to scream ‘Ditch him!’ (in Tony’s direction) at several moments.
Theo Walker – Coming Clean – The Turbine Theatre – Photo Credit Mark Senior.I’m getting ahead of myself.
Tony and Greg are a long-term couple. So far, so radical for queer theatre, especially a play penned in 1982 – by Kevin Elyot (of My Night With Reg fame). Their relationship is open, and our first introduction is to Tony, comparing how his disco night diverged from best friend William’s after William (Sam Goodchild) pulled and left with someone and Tony… didn’t. Any attempt to convince of the benefits of such an arrangement feels paper-thin, especially with the bizarre narrative decision to inform the audience that there are specific rules to their agreement only when it becomes abundantly clear to everyone that Greg has broken them.
I’m getting ahead of myself again.
Things start to go wrong when Tony hires (resting actor and) jobbing cleaner, Robert (Theo Walker). In a play where apparently, the men are so handsome that strangers know they want to spend their lives together with them the moment they lay eyes on each other, Robert is, unsurprisingly, very good-looking. He’s also, rather frustratingly, very middle class. Elyot avoids a patronising Lady Chatterley move of having the sheltered posh boys falling for the bit of rough, by having everyone involved being very happy discussing the merits of different classical composers, rather than, say, getting down and dirty on the now well-polished furniture.
Greg notes that the offending central character in the short story appears to be based on him. It seems to me that lovely but flawed Tony might be a stand-in for the playwright, which might explain how he ends up so deserving of a worthwhile relationship of the sort he simply isn’t going to get from two-dimensional Greg.
The acting is fine. The naturalistic set is elegant and compact in this boutique theatre. We’re thrown back instantly to an era of 90p pints and £10 cleaners. But both the story, with obvious twists, and the dialogue, often laboured, plod along, never reaching anywhere you wouldn’t expect. The actors’ hearts do seem to be in it, but they’re not working with the best material.
My Night With Reg is rightly seen as a brave, seminal work of queer theatre, demonstrating what Elyot was capable of. Greg ultimately assesses Tony’s short story as ‘quite good, particularly for someone just starting out’. An assessment Elyot might also have delivered of this, his debut work. I didn’t feel the urgency for this revival, and the creative effort might have been better applied elsewhere.
Review by Ben Ross
It’s 1982, Greg and Tony live in Kentish Town. They’ve been together 5 years and seem to have the perfect relationship and have love all figured out. They’re in a committed relationship, but with room for a little sex-on-the-side whenever it takes their fancy. Their only rule? Never sleep with the same man twice. When drop-dead gorgeous cleaner Robert walks into their lives, the fragile foundations of their sexual contract are thrown into jeopardy.
LISTINGS
COMING CLEAN
THE TURBINE THEATRE
28 March – 20 April 2024
Written by Kevin Elyot
Directed by Andrew Beckett
Performances: Tuesday – Friday at 7.30pm
Saturday at 3pm and 7.30pm
Sunday at 4pm
Age Guidance: 16 years+
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