My Night With Reg at the Donmar: additional thoughts, undiluted worship and an ill-thought crossover with The Pride

Julian Ovenden as John, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Daniel. Photo Johan Persson

This blog has always been intended as a diary, and it’s only fair I write about what’s on my mind the most. Putting it this way, a second post about My Night With Reg is long overdue. To use a phrase John uses, Kevin Elyot’s play knocked me for six and I have spent a good deal of my time thinking about it, not least because I can’t bear to let it go. The ramblings that follow are the result.

Ten ways I love My Night With Reg (SPOILERS ahoy, I talk about the plot. A lot. Also sexual references. So we are clear). You can find my original, spoiler-free, review here:

1) The first time the play takes a sharp turn, and we realise we aren’t at a dinner party but at someone’s funeral, a remarkable – even hopeful – moment goes unnoticed under the weight of the situation (and our 21st century gaze): Daniel is anxious to get back to his dead lover’s mother. Suddenly we have the image of two men living together as a couple, not only in the eyes of their friends but in the eyes of their families (or at least one family). It’s tender and heartbreaking in the context of the funeral and, in the mid eighties, much less the norm than it is now. By comparison, in The Pride, Alexi Kaye Campbell has one (heterosexual) man remembering his uncle dying of AIDS 20 years back, the implication being the uncle’s partner was kept at arm’s length and away from the family circle.

2) The play is poignant in exquisitely delicate ways: At the early hours of the morning after Guy’s funeral, Daniel notices the dressing gown John wears and asks “Isn’t that Guy’s?” to which John replies: “Is it?”. It’s not discussed further but suddenly the intimacy of the fabric on skin carries all of Guy’s unrequited desires.

3) Does Daniel believe John when the latter denies an affair with Reg? I don’t think he does. For one thing John vacillates so long, his denial seems unconvincing. At the back of this, the next scene is extraordinarily moving: the two of them constantly reassess what friendship means and time and again, they come up with the same answer: as Daniel says lightly, casually earlier in the play “I ‘ve never believed a word you ‘ve said, but I still adore you”.

My top ten theatre productions of 2013

As You Like It. Pippan Nixon and Alex Waldmann. Photo Alastair Muir

These are the 2013 productions that stuck in my dreams and didn’t want to shift. In strict alphabetical order, because selecting ten for the list was hard enough.

American Psycho, Almeida theatre: the energy and clarity of the production juxtaposed with Patrick Bateman’s nihilism made for an unforgettable experience. Hell in pastel colours and blood splatters. And eighties pop songs. Matt Smith plays the absence of a soul magnificently.

As You Like It, Royal Shakespeare Company: Discovery of love and freedom played out with such openness in Maria Aberg’s production that in the end I wanted to cry with joy. Pippa Nixon was luminous (and as Ganymede she looked like a young K.D. Lang – that can only be a plus) and Alex Waldmann matched her soulful playfulness every step of the way.

Review: Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride, at Trafalgar studios

Al Weaver (Oliver) and Harry Hadden Paton (Philip). Photo: Marc Brenner

After several years of obsessive theatregoing, I have seen my fair share of modern classics being born. There is no thrill like watching a preview of a great new play and seeing the possibilities before anyone else, knowing this secret before it’s revealed to the world. Then, there are the ones that got away: Alexi Kaye Campbell’s The Pride premiered at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in November 2008, and although my friends were raving about it, I never managed to see that production. It doesn’t help that the month’s run at the 80 seats theatre sold out very quickly, especially after reviews were out. Alexi Kaye Campbell went to win The Critics’ Circle Prize for Most Promising Playwright, the play had productions off broaddway and elsewhere in the world before coming back to Sheffield, where I managed to catch up with it for the first time. What a revelation that was.

For all its intricate structure (two timelines criss-crossing) and its bigger theme (human rights we take for granted, all the things we have yet to achieve), The Pride is painfully and joyfully about people. It has a skin on skin quality, the characters – all fully fledged and gloriously flawed – have desires and make choices to break your heart.

Review: Bracken Moor by Alexi Kaye Campbell, a Shared Experience / Tricycle theatre co-production

I always felt an affinity with Alexi Kaye Campbell. He was born and grew up in Athens (like I did) and I idly like to wonder whether our paths has crossed and could he be one of the older boys we fancied from afar at the english speaking school next to mine? Which is an excuse to reminisce about teenage crushes but has little to do with plays (if you discount the fact that almost all artistic adventures start as teenage crushes). But I digress. The point is, Alexi Kaye Campbell’s work gives me a tingle of anticipation, not only because he is one of the most intersting modern playwrights, but also due to our common roots (and he would know exactly what I mean when I talk about this).

Bracken Moor, Alexi Kaye Campbell’s new play, is named after a fictional (as far as I can tell) moor in Yorkshire. It’s set in the cavey drawing room of a mansion in the 1930s, a mansion built next to a coal mining community. The play is co-produced by Shared Experience, whose previous successes include Mary Shelley, and all these elements start to paint the picture of a gothic morality tale. In fact, it is a gothic morality tale of private tragedy and public responsibility brought to life with elegance, precision and visceral enthusiasm. Try to resist spoilers, the less you know the better.