I still can’t quite get my head around ‘incels’ – inverted commas very much mine – to me it’s all very extremist. A bunch of straight men who are unsuccessful at relationships, if they even try at all, have decided that everything negative in the world, and even beyond it, is solely and universally the fault of women. To put it another way, whether these misogynists know it or not, they ascribe powers and responsibilities to women that far exceed what could be humanly possible. A small group of young men are, as they are most days, online, discussing with one another their individual and collective failures, which are always someone else’s fault – the script makes so much use of the kind of vocabulary used by incels that the freesheet supplied contains “A Brief Glossary of Incel Terminology”.
The result of this bizarre form of group therapy is, in effect, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their declarations about themselves are, underneath the surface, statements about not being able to sustain a relationship. (And it is about relationships – if it was purely about bedroom activity, well, they could pay for that.) At face value, however, their unfulfilled relational desires manifest in fantasies about what they would do to a woman if only they could get anywhere near one. Let’s just say they don’t exactly want to whisk them away on a weekend city break to somewhere pleasant and sunny. Now, I have no idea how authentic the dialogue in this play is. Given the amount of laughter in the audience I suspect there was a degree of creative licence going on, although I’m equally open to the idea that what these men were saying was so ridiculous that it was just inherently entertaining, like political events that are so absurd there is little point sketchwriters coming up with a parody.
The twist comes when ‘Cuckboy’ has actually slept with someone – namely Margaret – such that, by definition, he isn’t, as ‘Crusher’ points out, involuntarily celibate anymore, and so should enjoy being with Margaret, but outside the group. ‘Ghost’ insists ‘Cuckboy’ should stay, if I recall correctly, because a one-night stand does not mean he has achieved the state of being in a long-term committed relationship. The counterargument: is he celibate? Yes or No? Well, then, goodbye. But it’s not as straightforward as that, even if the ‘real’ reason to keep him on seems to be to make use of the character, as well as that of Margaret, for the remainder of what is already a brief show.
There’s some recorded music, though your reviewer’s knowledge of chart music is too rudimentary to recognise any, bar one or two, of the tunes. The music is accompanied by choreography, much of which is entertaining, and breaks up what might otherwise have been a relentlessly intense hour of spoken word. The song and dance scenes do not, ultimately, achieve anything plot-wise other than emphasise what has already transpired. But it was, I thought, a useful addition to the show, and if anything demonstrated the cast’s versatility.
Quite ironically, the role of Margaret feels a tad underwritten – a journalist, she thinks about possibly writing a piece for the publication she writes for about the incels she has met through Cuckboy. It is curious that rather than attempting to dive deep into finding out more about why incels see all women as sub-human, she instead seeks to devise ways in which she could persuade other women to sleep with them. Odd narrative choices aside, this is an engaging eye-opener into a pertinent contemporary issue.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Log onto the world of the incels, a terminally online community of toxic men, in this fast-paced new comedy-drama from Jamie Sykes.
Ghost, Crusher, Einstain and Cuckboy are all ‘involuntarily celibate’ and blame women – and society – for keeping sex from them. That is, until one of them sleeps with an actual real-life woman! And all hell breaks loose.
Slide into the group chat as hilarious chaos unfolds and we get to know the men behind the usernames, as well as Margaret, the woman in question – and the only voice of reason in their peculiar online world. The Last Incel tackles a hard-hitting topic with razor-sharp writing and a much-needed sense of humour.
Cast: Fiachra Corkery, Jackson Ryan, Justine Stafford, GoblinsGoblinsGoblins, Jimmy Kavanagh
Written and directed by Jamie Sykes
THE LAST INCEL
Pleasance Theatre
14 to 31 May 2025
https://www.pleasance.co.uk/
