Four Play

🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑 " A fantastic mixture of comedy, anxiety, drama and sex appeal"

Four Play tells the story of 2 couples who are members of the LGBT community: Rafe (Lewis Cornay) & Pete (Zheng Xi Yong) and Michael (Daniel Bravo) & Andy (Jo Foster). We get into the story immediately with Rafe propositioning Michael for a threesome. This is Cornay’s strongest scene and a brilliant introduction to both the story and the mood of the production. He has a frantic energy that is equal parts exciting and anxiety inducing. 

This balance of emotions is a theme that continues throughout the play. It can be exciting one moment, tender the next before cracking a joke and then becoming sexually charged. In lesser productions, one might find this jarring but in the talented hands of writer (Jake Brunger) and director (Jack Sain) it works seamlessly. 

Speaking of seamlessly, the scene changes were some of the slickest I’ve ever seen Off-West-End! The previous scene often started before the previous one had finished which gave a very realistic feel to affairs (no pun intended!). This is compounded by the excellent use of a pretty small stage area. For this we have to thank movement director Charlie Martin - also responsible for a great moment at the very beginning with some exercise balls! (no I’m not going to spoil that!)

Jo Foster (Andy) didn’t feature much in the first half but gave an absolutely show-stealing performance whenever they appeared! There are some particularly strong scenes where it really feels like Andy has the rest of the characters wrapped around their fingers. They really pull off asking two innocent questions then hitting with a piercing third. Sometimes this is used to comedic effect and sometimes dramatic, at one point eliciting what might be the biggest gasp I’ve heard from an audience!

In some productions which tell similar stories, there can be a bit of a tendency to perhaps pander to gay male audiences with gratuitous nudity in sex scenes. But in the capable hands of the intimacy coordinator (Robbie Taylor-Hunt) we can see that you have incredibly erotic scenes without needing to resort to nudity at all! 

Disappointingly, the ending to me felt either a little rushed or not long enough. I understand that sounds like a contradiction but there are a few attempts to tie strings up  towards the end that would’ve gone better left alone, or needed an extra scene or two to make me more invested in. 

Overall this is a brilliant production you should definitely see. Despite telling a story that I’ve seen on stage several times before it pulls it off better than most. It manages to balance a bunch of emotions expertly and I truly felt like I emphasised the emotions of all of the characters at one point or another. 

Four Play is running at the King’s Head Theatre until the 17 August.