Theatre review: Unicorn with Nicola Walker, Stephen Mangan & Erin Doherty

Two plus one equals a challenging comedy

★★★★

Stephen Mangan, Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

Unicorn is about a middle-aged couple played by Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan who are attracted to the idea of introducing a third person into their relationship- in the form of a younger woman played by Erin Doherty.

This makes it a difficult play to review. Not because of some of the language- although that’s a problem too- but because so much of the play is about whether they will or won’t go ahead. I’ll do my best to talk about this adventurous comedy without giving away any spoilers.

Here are some things I can tell you about Unicorn. It’s funny, although the light-heartedness does give way to something deeper in the second half. I can also tell you it’s about emotional relationships rather than a simple threesome (if indeed a threesome is ever simple). And, even if it is about more than physical gratification, there is nevertheless much frank- and indeed filthy- talk about sex.

Having said that, if you were hoping to see these beloved stars in the buff, or were perhaps dreading the embarrassment of seeing bits of them that are normally covered up, there are no depictions of sex. They don’t even undress, well, Nicola Walker does take her shoes off. Frankly, it’s shocking enough to hear Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan talking about sex in explicit four letter words- yes, even that word- without them actually doing it.

Our middle-aged couple still say they love one another but wonder if a third person might spice things up their sex life. Fortunately Polly, played by Nicola Walker at her most hesitant and nervously sensual, is a lecturer, and one of her mature but much younger than her students has the hots for her. And she feels the same.

Normally, if that’s the right word in this unusual situation, it’s difficult to find a young woman who wants a relationship with an older couple. (I’m not saying this from personal experience- it’s what we’re told in the play.) As rare as a unicorn, in fact. But fortunately, Kate, played by Erin Doherty, is interested, and so the story begins. The very word ‘unicorn’ may suggest a fantasy but we go with it because this is a scintillating script by Mike Bartlett, and these three actors, under James Macdonald’s direction, know exactly what to do with it. Their comic timing is exquisite.

Erin Doherty nails the younger woman: frank, matter-of-fact and with a clear picture of what she wants. She talks loud and without hesitation. The generational gap is portrayed well. Stephen Mangan as Nick is especially good as an older man tying himself in knots as he tries to contain what he fears is stereotypical masculinity. He and Nicola Walker capture that respectful tone of the woke London middle class who are aware they shouldn’t offend or take risks, so beat about the bush and constantly retreat from what they really want. ‘It’s entirely possible that on some level this is inappropriate,’ says Polly to Kate. Even when they kiss, all three contain any passion they might feel in favour of conversation.

So we journey through the first half continuing a will-they-won’t-they situation. At this point, I think I can add something to my plot summary. It might be a spoiler but I doubt you imagine this prevarication, funny as it is, could possibly continue for over two hours. In the second half, they do get together, but only after some significant turning points in all their lives. We find that 30 year old Kate is increasingly the driving force in the potential three-way relationship, and we realise why. She comes to represent not only hope for the throuple but also a wider hope for humanity.

Nicola Walker & Erin Doherty in Unicorn. Photo: Marc Brenner

As we move into the dynamics of the menage-a-trois, and its ups and downs (no innuendo intended), the humour subsides a little in favour of more philosophical conversations. To summarise: we live in dangerous times, when the world and our bodies are threatened by pollution. We’re brought up on Disney happy-ever-after movies and bicycles made for two. So our primary choice of heteronormative coupling is tied up with this failed society. A willingness to try new, honest ways of living and loving could be the path to happiness and a better world.

It’s clear from the start that this particular arrangement is so rare that it is close to a fairy tale, a fairy tale that even features a unicorn. Then again, children’s fairy tales are a way of tackling the challenges offered by a world that can seem dark and forbidding. I don’t want to say whether their happiness ultimately comes from their being all together or working out different kinds of relationships, but I certainly came out of the theatre feeling upbeat about the world.

Miriam Buether’s set is half of a dome, the other half being in effect the fourth wall. It occasionally concertinas up at the back to allow an entrance. The impression is that the three are contained within a cocoon, thus adding to the feeling that they are in a fantasy world. The backdrop is bathed in different colours, and sometimes Natasha Chivers‘ lighting design casts multiple shadows. I’m not sure if that’s to indicate the multiple possibilities of modern relationships or more mundanely to make the image of two or three people on stage more visually stimulating. There are few props- chairs or a sofa to sit on, a bed to lie on. Refreshingly, both designer and director take a discreet approach that lets the actors to do their job.

I certainly wouldn’t go see Unicorn if you’re hoping for an erotic evening, but if you take it as a fantasy delve into changing attitudes to relationships, then it’s both interesting and funny. If nothing else, it will get you talking, and who knows what that might lead to.

Unicorn can be seen at the Garrick Theatre until 26 April 2025.

Paul paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre Reviews With Paul Seven

March 18, 2022May 4, 2023

Jonathan Bailey & Taron Egerton in Cock – review

Celebrity casting maybe, good acting definitely

★★★

Production photo from Mike Bartlett's comedy Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre in London showing Taron Egerton and Jonathan Bailey. March 2022 — Taron Egerton & Jonathan Bailey in Cock. Photo: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

Let me make clear from the start the ‘cock’ of the title does not refer to a penis, although there are quite a few references to penises in the play. So, no jokes about limp performances (there weren’t any), standing up at the end (they did) or Mike Bartlett’s Cock not being very long (it’s only 105 minutes).

The title alludes to a cock fight, because it’s about a love triangle in which two people are rivals for a third person’s love and he struggles to choose between them. It’s a play about an ostensibly gay couple one of whom finds himself attracted to a woman, and, although interesting questions are asked about how we define people’s sexuality, it’s primarily a comedy.

And since you ask, although sex is referred to regularly throughout the play, and it is quite erotic at times, the actors keep their clothes on and use stylised movements to indicate physical activity. I’m pretty sure no intimacy advisor was needed.

There are two star names in this play. So, let me start with their performances, and say that both earn their place on the stage, not because they’re celebrities but because they’re damn good actors.

Taron Egerton is best known for his performances in the films Rocketman and Kingsman, but he is RADA trained and has appeared at the National Theatre. Here he is the unnamed M (for Man, get it?). He gives a nuanced performance as what appears to be the dominant lover in a long term relationship. He plays to perfection this swaggering character who hides, in a very masculine way, his need for love. Mr Egerton has a wonderful ability to switch from a jaw jutting bully to soft and red-eyed with tears, and he delivers lines of waspish humour with a lashing tongue.

Jonathan Bailey is one of the many ridiculously attractive people from Bridgerton and destined to become the central character in the second series. He too has a good track record in theatre, including an Olivier Award. He plays M’s partner, the only character given a name, not that ‘John’ is much of an ID. His character is painfully indecisive. Mr Bailey provides many enjoyable moments of comedy, as he grimaces with his face and contorts his body in a child-like way, whilst avoiding making his mind up. If anything, there is just a little too much goofiness. We know he is suffering because there are moments outside of the action when he is alone and bathed in harsh light screaming silently, but in his interaction with the other characters, he doesn’t show quite enough of this angst.

Both are physically right for the parts, Mr Bailey thin and gangly, Mr Egerton stocky and muscular. Not quite Laurel and Hardy, but it would hard to imagine either playing the other role.

An impressive production

What you notice when you enter the auditorium is Merle Hensel’s impressive set. It’s chrome or some similar polished metal curved around the sides and back of the stage. There’s no escaping it. There are no distracting props and the one way in and out is a concealed revolving door. All that happens is reflected back on itself, conveying the way these characters are trapped in their relationships and unable to see beyond them. There are some hanging fluorescent strips which come down from time to time and these along with other lighting changes from dark to brilliantly bright, orchestrated by Paule Constable, match and enhance the mood changes.

First, we meet M and John. They’re relaxed in each other’s company. There’s a lot of affection. There’s also a lot of sniping and bickering, but anyone who’s been in a long term relationship will recognise how natural this is, because it is easy to get into negative ways of behaving.

However, there is a problem with this relationship. The cliché of a seven year itch perhaps. John has had sex with someone else. Shockingly for both of them, given that M is gay and until now John has thought of himself as gay, the other person is a woman. M’s dominating character and the way he resorts to unpleasantness hint at why John might have been tempted to stray. It has to be said that, while the insults may hurt John, they are funny for us to hear, for example when he launches into a string of offensive terms for someone who is attracted to women.

The cast of Cock. Photo: Brinkhoff Moegenburg

In the second act, we see how this other relationship began and developed. Jade Anouka (you may recognise her from His Dark Materials) is excellent as the woman with whom John has an affair and falls in love. Her character is called W (for woman). There isn’t so much potential for comedy in this part, but Ms Anouka exudes the love and need for love of her character. John shows nervousness but clear attraction, and there’s a gentleness and respect between them that wasn’t apparent in John’s relationship with M. But of course he is still attracted to M, and Mr Bailey is at his comic best when he is confused about what he wants, beyond wanting to please everybody. It is his indecisiveness that enables his lovers to mould him into what they need.

Stylised movement is moving

This is a good point to mention the way they first make love. As I said earlier, there is next to no physical intimacy beyond a kiss or a hug. They keep their clothes on. You’ll also remember I said the set is bare of any props. Throughout the play, body movement expresses thoughts and feelings without resorting to obvious mime. So much of the physical action is left to your imagination. For example, a whole meal is served in the third act without any sign of a table a bowl or cutlery.

Going back to this first encounter between John and W, they indicate through the dialogue what they are doing, while staying physically separate on stage. She wants to see his naked body. He moves his hands to indicate the shedding of clothes without literally miming taking off each item. Similarly, they describe him exploring her vagina but what we see, from memory, is him touching his leg and her using her body to express the excitement she is feeling inside. This exploration of each other’s bodies is highly erotic, proving perhaps that the best sex is in the brain. I congratulate director Marianne Elliott is for utilising this remarkably effective element, and the movement director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster for making it work so well.

This and the set and the lighting could only happen in a theatre and all contribute to a complete experience that enhances what’s said. Talking of which, Mike Bartlett has an excellent ear for dialogue- just the exchanges you would expect both from a long term relationship and a first meeting.

If I have a criticism of the production, it’s that it looks too good. It’s so stylish with its cold encompassing metal and its stylised movement that it takes away some of the raw feeling from these relationships.

The third act is the cock fight. M invites W to join him and John for dinner. It feels contrived but gives us the showdown we want. M brings along his father for good measure. He’s called F (of course) and is played by Phil Daniels, in a performance that shows a parent’s blinkered affection – he wants his son to be happy- and gives us insight into the limitations of both liberal tolerance and a view that defines people by their sexuality and gender.

M and W each think John has chosen them and is going to take the opportunity to reject the other. As the evening progresses, there’s verbal sparring, and increasingly desperate emotion as it becomes clear how much each of them needs John. He meanwhile continues to be pulled one way and another both by his feelings and by what box he should tick, with the possibility that it’s all ‘cock’, as in cock and bull.

Cock is funny a lot of the time, it lectures some of the time, and it’s not as deep as I suspect it thinks it is, but as a look at the way hearts break the rules set by our brains, it’s full of insight, especially in the hands of its starry cast.

Cock is running at the Ambassadors Theatre in London until 4 June 2022

Paul received a press ticket from the producer

Watch the review of Cock on YouTube

August 21, 2020

Mike Bartlett’s Albion – review of BBC live recording

Victoria Hamilton blooms in Mike Bartlett’s play about loss

★★★★

Victoria Hamilton in Albion at the Almeida recorded live — Victoria Hamilton in Albion at the Almeida. Photo: Marc Brenner

Sometimes you watch the first act of a play and it’s just the setup and you really want to get it over with so you can move on to how it’s all going to work out. Not so with Mike Bartlett’s Albion, directed by Rupert Goold at the Almeida Theatre, which is currently available as a live recording on BBC iPlayer. The first act is captivating and what follows, while good, never lives up to the promise.

Audrey has bought a house she knew as a child. It had a historic garden and she plans to renovate it. No matter that this involves uprooting her daughter, neglecting her business, upsetting the local community who have become used to using the huge outdoor space for their annual events.

It’s a good script but what you’re riveted by is Victoria Hamilton’s performance. From the start, she grabs you by the lapels, then she puts you down and walks away, then she picks you again. She is mesmerising as she paces back and forth and spits out her staccato sentences, like a neurotic sergeant major. For example, when she is pouring tea and says: ‘Let me be mother…since I am…’ followed by a false, stuttering laugh.

This is the sort of intimate theatre that works really well in a live recording. The Almeida is a small theatre and the cast occupy a three-sided stage. It’s like an oval island surrounded by the audience. Actually, although an island might symbolise its isolation from the rest of the world, it is in fact a garden with a solid tree at one end, giving a sense of history. The actors don’t have to shout and the cameras close in on a face much as you would if you were lucky enough to be sitting in one of the seats.

For me, nothing lived up to that first act. There’s plenty going on with many developments involving the other characters but they felt tacked on, no matter how good the acting was. Not so much multi-layered, as laid on thick. And the ending was way too melodramatic.

What I loved throughout the whole play was the dominating character of Audrey and the way Victoria Hamilton blooms as the wishful gardener. Grief has consumed her and the only way she can cope is to reject everyone and everything in favour of a retreat into an imagined golden age.

She has lost her soldier son in what she sees as defending his country but what is referred to a one point as a ‘folly’. As a way of honouring him, she is determined to recreate the original garden, even though it is now anachronistic. It’s pointed out that the climate has changed- and that ‘climate’ may refer to more than growing conditions, because there is an allegory here for the state of England and how we as a nation are coping with the loss of mythical past glories and with the need to move on.

Audrey wants to return to a bygone age but only within the boundaries of her world. So, she doesn’t care that she is trampling on the traditions of the local people; and she hires the more efficient Polish cleaner (and sacks the local woman who has done the job for years. It is fascinating, shocking even to see the insensitivity that can come from single-mindedness, and her gradual but inevitable disintegration.

Set of Albion at The Almeida Theatre London, designed by Miriam Buether. Photo: Marc Brenner — Mike Bartlett’s Albion at The Almeida Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

It’s also fascinating to see the garden change as flowers grow through the four acts, each of which is a different season, culminating with the ‘fall’. It’s a great design by Miriam Buether.

I glossed over the other characters earlier but that doesn’t mean I don’t think they were acted well. Audrey’s daughter Zara is played by Daisy Edgar-Jones, who recently made a breakthrough to stardom with her role in TV’s Normal People. She is perfect as a troubled twenty something. Helen Schlesinger makes you feel the pain as Katherine, a successful but shy novelist, forced to make a hard choice between a thirty year friendship and a rare opportunity for love.

In a play that is more amusing than funny, Nicholas Rowe as Audrey’s devoted husband Paul got the most laughs as a man so proudly laid back that he was almost horizontal.

It’s hard not to compare Albion with Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Unfortrunately, on every count, this play comes out worse. Chekhov’s second half doesn’t peter out, his ending feels real and even his minor characters have depth. So best not go there, better to simply enjoy Albion as a good if not great play with a mother of a leading role that, in future productions, actors will queue up to play.

For me, one of the tests of watching theatre at home is whether I wish I’d seen it in the theatre. In Albion’s case, despite some flaws, I would have loved to have been there. Especially to see that outstanding performance by Victoria Hamilton.

The live recording of Mike Bartlett’s Albion is currently available on BBC i-Player.

Watch the YouTube video of this review here.