Tag: Kings Head Theatre

THEATRE REVIEW | Jerker, London

★★★★ | Jerker, Kings Head Theatre, London

(C) Nick Rutter

It is the mid-1980s in San Francisco and two men enjoy a sexual relationship on phone sex lines in Jerker at The Kings Head Theatre.

Originally shown in 1986 in Los Angeles, the show involves JR (Tom Joyner) and Bert (Tibu Fortes), chatting on a phone sex line, both lying on separate beds across the stage from each other, scantily dressed as if they were in their own bedrooms. And throughout this 100-minute production they talk dirty talk and bring each other to climax.

But it’s not just a one-off – they both are enjoying their conversations and soon it becomes more than just sexual – they’re developing feelings for each other, and they also reveal their deepest darkest secrets, as well as recent sexual encounters (Bert tells one so vividly it’s exciting not only for him and JR but also for the audience). But it’s at the height of the AIDS scare and both men are living in the city that was considered ‘ground zero.’

Their relationship, however, becomes intense, intimate and personal. However, it’s only a matter of time when AIDS strikes too close to home.

And it did strike too close to home as the the playwright – Robert Chesley – died in 1990 of complications from AIDS.

Jerker is a relic, a warning sign of that time – of things that were to come. It’s also a memento, and a very sad one at that.

The original title of this play was:
Jerker or the Helping Hand, A pornographic Elegy with Redeeming Social Value and a Hymn to the Queer Men of San Francisco in 20 Telephone Calls, Many of them Dirty

Jerker plays at The Kings Head Theatre until 23rd November Book here

6th November 2019
THEATRE REVIEW | Boys in the Buff, Kings Head Theatre, London

★★★ | Boys in the Buff

The Full Monty. Naked Boys Singing. And put Boys in the Buff in that category.

Yes, these are shows where the male cast take their clothes off and sing and act (a bit) for the audience. Of course, The Full Monty was the biggest of the bunch (biggest I mean most popular – ahem). Naked Boys Singing was the gayest, and Boys in the Buff is in a category all by itself – the campiest!

Four good-looking young men and a voluptuous compere entertain us with their flare, razzle-dazzle, and their bits (well not the compere – who is female!) in a show with witty and cute songs and dialogue but perhaps lacking in good taste, and in a couple of cases, passable acting! But singing, and acting, is not what this show is all about – we’re left in anticipation of waiting, and wanting, for the boys to take their clothes off. In the meanwhile, we are treated to really fun songs like ’Size Doesn’t Matter,’ ‘Does My Bum Look Big in This,’ and ‘Let it All Hang Out,’ and dreadful ones that include ‘Dancing in the Semi-Nude’ and ‘My Foreskin and Me.’ There’s also audience participation much to the delight (not) of the audience. But in the intimate confines of the Kings Head Theatre, where the first two rows are so close to the stage it’s almost a crime, the boys really pour out their hearts, and display their bits, for us soldieringly. Adam Mroz is so cute and sexy; you just want to take him home and put him on your bookshelf! Hunky Adam O’Shea, who was in the original production at the Lost Theatre this past summer, brings his muscles with him, – he’s certainly got pecs-appeal! Daniel Timoney is along for the ride, as is Eli Caldwell. But Shani Cantor is just fab fab fab as the hostess with the mostest! All in all, it’s one hour of fun!!!

Boys in the Buff plays at The Kings Head Theatre until Dec 9th, 2017

1st December 2017
THEATRE REVIEW | Outlaws to In-Laws, King’s Head Theatre, London

★★★★ | Outlaws to In-Laws

London is very fortunate to have a theatre like the King’s Head because of its repertoire of gay-themed shows. And now it’s in the middle of presenting its LGBT Festival with the showcase of a new play called Outlaws to In-Laws.

Outlaws to In-Laws attempts, successfully, to depict the experiences of gay men over the last seven decades. And while it’s a subject that would be daunting for any theatre, or playwright, involved, the seven playwrights who wrote the seven shows that cover seven decades of gay life do their darnedest to both entertain and educate the audience. Here are some of the highlights:

Happy and Glorious – by Philip Meeks – is set in the 1950s on the day of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation where two men fall into a tryst and both their lives change forever.

Mister Tuesday – by Jonathan Harvey (Beautiful Thing) – Peter and Jimmy have sex, on Tuesdays, but we soon realize that Jimmy is married with children while Peter threatens to blackmail him just so that he can keep the trysts, and possibly more, ongoing.

Reward – by Jonathan Harvey – a riveting story where a rough and tough skinhead and a young black man meet at a bus stop and fall into a relationship, but it’s illicit one where both of them could be in real danger. Both actors, Jack Bence and Michael Duke, are excellent.

1984 – by Patrick Wilde – where two men have an encounter, and one of them, a politico for Thatcher, realizes that all that he stands for is soon to change.

Brothas – by Topher Campbell – where two black men, Dwayne and Remi, have fun cruising on a black dating site, slighting the unattractive ones while favouring the more ‘looking and acting straight’ ones. But it’s Dwayne who’s in it for more than just the sex.

While most of the stories are very good, what is best about this production are the performances. All seven actors give it their best, but it’s a few of them who really stand out. Bence, as previously mentioned, is highly memorable as the skinhead in Reward and as Peter in Mister Tuesday – both roles require high stakes drama and passion, and Bence delivers, while both Myles Devonté and Duke look very comfortable in their roles in Brothas – they are both naturals in front of the audience.

Outlaws to In-laws is two hours of theatre that, while a bit cobbled together, is still a very good journey that takes us from decade to decade of gay life linked together very cleverly and showcasing the talent of the playwrights and especially the actors.

Outlaws to In-Laws is now playing at The King’s Head Theatre until September 23.

For details of The King’s Head’s other gay production, “Gypsy Queen,” please go here:

https://kingsheadtheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873576764

13th September 2017
THEATRE REVIEW | 5 Guys Chillin’, Kings Head Theatre, London

★★★ | 5 Guys Chillin’, Kings Head Theatre, London

There’s a chemsex party taking place at the King’s Head Theatre. No, it’s not an actual party – It’s the returning show 5 Guys Chillin’.

In the comforts of the living room of J (David Palmstrom) and M (George Fletcher), them and three other guys (actually men) are enjoying each other as well as the drugs on the table in order to experience the highs, and in some cases, the lows, of what gay men (not all gay men) are getting into nowadays; drugs and sex and more drugs and in some cases unsafe sex in private house parties.

B (Gareth Watkins) and R (Tom Ratcliffe) are a bit of an unmatched couple; R is very young but not so innocent, while muscular big daddy B is experienced and likes it any which way and loose. And the last one to arrive at the party is Pakistani PJ (George Bull). He’s a bit unsure as to why he’s there, but slowly gets into the action. But he’s got a story to tell the other guys; he’s actually married with a young child because it’s what is expected in his culture. Besides him, all the guys have stories to tell; B’s story is particularly vivid as he recounts the time he was spit roasted in Berlin where sexual diseases were not discussed. It’s all a lot to take in; the play’s honesty and brutal nature is scary because know all know these types of gay men, and parties, do actually exist.

And all the actors should be admired for performing such an in your face play shedding emotions as well as bravely shedding their clothes. Writer and Director Peter Darney seems to have gotten the tone and characters right, but luckily I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been and don’t plan to go to one of these parties.

5 Guys Chillin’ plays at Kings Head Theatre until June 3rd

23rd May 2017
THEATRE | Adam & Eve and Steve

What is Adam & Eve and Steve about?

Adam & Eve… and Steve is a brand new five-star musical farce set in a newly created paradise, the Garden of Eden. The basis of every love story, every romantic ballad, and every sentimental poem ever written is man meets woman, they disagree, they resolve their differences, they fall in love. But…..

Adam & Eve… and Steve is the story of the first couple up to a point…everything in the Garden is going according to God’s plan until the pesky Beelzebub adds the hunky Steve into the mix. Fun, mischief and mayhem ensues as Adam & Eve compete for Steve’s affections and God tries to impose some order on the chaotic love tangle that ensues.

Adam & Eve…and Steve won Best New Musical at the Hollywood Fringe 2015 and comes to London after a highly acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2016

Dale Adams (Steve) trained at the Arts Ed, London. His stage appearances include Prince Charming in Cinderella and Frankie Valli in Oh What a Night! He has also appeared at Glyndebourne and was in the ensemble for the Olivier Awards.

Michael Christopher (God) played Sir Thomas Moore in Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons and Monk Tetzel in John Osborne’s Luther.

Hayley Hampson (Eve) trained at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts and her credits include: Blue Girl in Shout! The Mod Musical; Faryl in Golden Oldies; Daisy in Pharaoh Cross the Mersey; and Sophie in Departure Lounge.

Stephen McGlynn (Beelzebub) has appeared in the West End in Mary Poppins, Mamma Mia (original cast), Les Miserables, Witches of Eastwick, and State Fair. He has also appeared in Romeo and Juliet, It’s A Wonderful Life, Hairspray, Macbeth, Beauty and the Beast and Evita.

Joseph Robinson (Adam) trained at The Guildford School of Acting and this is his professional debut.

Adam and Eve… and Steve is directed and choreographed by Francesca Goodridge. Francesca Trained at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. She has worked as an actor, singer and director. Her directing credits include Shout! The Mod Musical at LIPA, Edinburgh Festival and Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre.

The book and lyrics are by Chandler Warren, a noted US entertainment lawyer, producer and writer. Warren has written extensively for television and theatre, as well as penning numerous books and articles. He has also produced movies, for television and theatre productions, both on and off Broadway.

The original music is composed by Wayne Moore, whose previous original works include; There’s No Place Like Hollywood (Stella Adler Theatre), Freeway Dreams (The Gardenia), I Know I Came In Here For Something and The Real Desperate Housewives (Taconic Playhouse, New York).

Musical direction is by Dean Austin, whose extensive credits include Allegro at Southwark Playhouse, Zorro at the Garrick, as well as TV appearances on Jonathan Ross, Royal Variety Show and Paul O’Grady. Set and Costume designer is Roberta McKeown, whose credits include Shout! The Mod Musical. Roberta was Wardrobe Assistant for the UK tour of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and the UK tour of Jeeves and Wooster and for Disney’s The Lion King.

Lighting is by Richard Williamson, production manager for C Venues at the Edinburgh Festival; his many credits include Easter Rising at the Jermyn, Richard lll at Stratford, and Play Size at Young Vic. Sound Design is by Django Holder who graduated from The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 2016 with a BA (Hons) in Sound Technology. This is his professional debut.

The King’s Head Theatre is London’s first and foremost pub theatre and is led by Artistic Director, Adam Spreadbury-Maher. New writing, revivals, musicals, opera, cabaret and queer work sit side by side in an unashamedly eclectic programme of work. Thanks to an in-house agreement with Equity, we’re leading the way when it comes to ethical employment on the fringe whilst our resident trainee director’s scheme continues to provide comprehensive, vocational training to the rising stars of tomorrow. With high profile co-productions, national touring and transfers to and from the biggest arts festivals in the world, we’re certainly not slowing down!

What theatre is Adam & Eve and Steve on?

Venue: King’s Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London, N1 1QN

What dates does Adam & Eve and Steve run?

Tuesday 21^st March – Saturday 29^th April 2017

Times: Tuesday – Friday @ 8.40pm: Saturday @ 3pm & 8.40pm: Sunday @ 5pm

2nd April 2017
THEATRE REVIEW | Adam and Eve and Steve, Kings Head Theatre, London

★★★ | Adam and Eve and Steve, Kings Head Theatre, London

It’s not Adam and Eve but Adam and Eve and Steve (plus the Devil) at The Kings Head Theatre.

A musical version of the biblical story that we all know and love so well is just what we need in this time of Brexit and Trump. But in this story Steve (Dale Adams), and not Eve, is accidentally created by God (the voice and later the body of Michael Christopher) – thanks to Beelzebub – the Devil (played to camp perfection by Stephen McGlynn). But Adam (an innocent looking Joseph Robinson) thinks that Steve is actually Eve, but then God waves his magic wand and creates the real Eve (a sexy Hayley Hampson) and it all becomes very confusing for Adam. Beelzebub tempts them all to take a bite of, as he calls it, the pom (a/k/a apple) against God’s wishes. But Steve wants to be with Adam, and Eve wants to be with Adam, and Adam is confused, and what does Beelzebub (and the mostly gay audience) want?

For Adam and Steve to hook up, and, of course, Beelzebub (and us) wants everyone to sin! Set to a sinfully silly musical score (‘I want to shop for furniture’ was one of the most memorable tunes) and tons of references to the existing world (Uber, Ikea, gluten free), with lots of skin on show, Adam and Eve and Steve won’t change your life but it will make you forget all about the outside world for a luckily brief 75 minutes.

Adam and Eve and Steve Plays at the Kings Head Theatre until 29th April 2017

1st April 2017
THEATRE REVIEW | Strangers in Between, Kings Head Theatre

★★★★ | Strangers in Between, Kings Head Theatre

CREDIT: Andreas Grieger

Great performances by a cast of three is the highlight of the play ‘Strangers in Between.’

Playing for the second year in a row at the Kings Head Theatre, ’Strangers in Between’ is a drama about a young man experiencing the big city for the first time. Shane (Roly Botha) has moved from his small hometown in Australia to the big city of Sydney. He says he’s 19, and he works in a liquor store yet doesn’t even know how to use the register. In walks a customer – gay and trendy Will (Dan Hunter). Shane at first is a bit intimidated by him, but they manage to make small talk until another customer walks in – Peter (Stephen Connery-Brown) – a middle-aged gay man looking for a simple yet inexpensive bottle of wine. Eventually, Shane gets Will’s number.

Shane lives in the Kings Cross section of Sydney, an area teeming with prostitutes and crime. But Shane loves it there, especially as it’s far away from his family, and especially brother, he ran away from. He and Will hook up for a few trysts – it’s purely a sexual relationship – while Shane finds comfort in his friendship with Peter. But Shane has a couple secrets, one being his age, and the other involving his homophobic brother Ben (Hunter). But suddenly Ben finds Shane in Sydney after Shane’s world is falling apart after he has lost his job and contracted an STD from Will.

The cast is very admirable but it’s Botha who shines. His Shane is young, cute, innocent and with a nervous tick – he dominates the very small stage – Botha is a wonder. Hunter ably does double duty as Will and Ben, while Connery-Brown is very good as Peter. While the ending is a bit of a letdown, the play, written by Tommy Murphy, is a show that all of us can relate to because at one time we were all young and innocent and new to the big city.

For tickets, please visit:

Strangers In Between plays at the Kings Head Theatre until 4th Feb 2017

13th January 2017
THEATRE REVIEW | The HIV Monologues

★★★★★ | The HIV Monologues

CREDIT: Dionysis Livanis

From AIDS to PrEP: Love, Sex & HIV

If you met a moreish specimen of a man on Grindr, in Rupert St Bar or at a friend’s gatherette and there was immediate trouser-twitching, shimmies to the heart department and your thoughts turned towards naming your first pair French bulldogs – but then, after some time into this meet, said hottie informs you he’s HIV positive – do you know how you’d react?

Marking twenty years since life-saving HIV medication was introduced to the UK, Patrick Cash has penned a very real production that will send sparks to your neurons, pricking your nervous system: a trio of scenarios that are entwined together touching on the effects of HIV in the 80s up until the current day.

Alex (Denholm Spurr) – a Labrador puppy intermixed with a male cheerleader with obtuse understanding of the immune-attacking virus – struggles with the idea of being close to someone who’s positive, and barely has enough shrapnel to buy even the smallest tube of lube. The out-of-work actor gets himself into a sticky situation with the truth.

Lack of knowledge inflames fear, but understanding can provoke the guardian in all of us. Irene’s (Charly Flyte) journey nursing AIDS patients is moving and compelling. Barney (Jonathan Blake – one of the first people to have been diagnosed with AIDS in the UK) learns to live with the deficient insight with HIV in the 80s – a convincing performance.

A Thunder Looper of emotions: stigma, humour, shame and love – some well-directed tandem acting by Luke Davies – a challenging subject to cover – executed well.

Two new dates at the King’s Head Theatre as part of their World AIDS Day weekend 20th and 21st November.

8th November 2016
THEATRE REVIEW | The Chemsex Monologues

★★★★ | The Chemsex Monologues

Introducing a hexagon of narratives that will surge a memory, ignite a demon or pep your G spot.
PR Supplied
If you’ve never darkened the dimly lit doorway of a chill-out, you’ll grasp that the etiquette for accepting others’ pharmaceuticals is to putout; sexual health workers hand out condoms in saunas to the beats of Kylie; Bermondsey is a hotspot for Roman style orgies; gays high on meth get lost buying cigarettes; G-o’clock equals a contorting face; overdoing the liquid-high could leave you with an unexplained bleeding rectum.

Writer Patrick Cash leans on the darker side of the drug-fueled free-for-all, with more authenticity than an Eastenders’ Christmas double bill – graphically touching on a mosaic of very real circumstances.

Sex, high on narcotics, can rocket your orgasm to another sphere, but, for some, what happens when the euphoria fades?

Denholm Spurr (Nameless), snorts Andrex-Puppy-ness into a character you’ll know, have seen or can relate to. Charly Flyte (Fag Hag Cath) is credible and injects a decent size syringe full of humour.

Leave ya poppers at home and there’s no need for laughing gas. You’ll rush, and sink to the bottom, in this well-quilled chem-hole.

The Chemsex Monologues plays at The Kings Head Theatre until 20th August 2016, 0207 226 8561

18th August 2016
THEATRE REVIEW | Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens

★★ | Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens
CREDIT: Will_Frost
Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens is billed as an inter-galactic disco extravaganza that explodes all around you. Well something exploded, or backfired. Think all-singing, trying-to-dance Battlestar Galactica meets Mad Max, throw in some glitter, silver lamé and a few other odds and sods from another solar-system’s secondhand dressing-up box.

In amongst magnetosphere-of-madness is a wannabe poet cosmic Cyclops, a zodiac German doctor impersonator, a metallic-headed basque-sporting Medusa with two klingons in tow – the vixen trio. And thrust into the starlight as if she just landed from another planet, Chesty Prospects (Sophie Cordwell James): imagine Cheryl Fernandez-Versini trying to pull-off ‘fierce’, with a live vocal performance wearing a studded bra and stardust. Light years from close.

Confused? So were we. There’s a serial killer, and these super-fashion crime-fighters from a groovier galaxy with a mission to fight crime and liberate the universe harnessing the Power of Disco. Or, a dark-matter Rocky-Horror-esque disco blended with a whole sphere of amateur cabaret.

The production lifted off quite well but gravity kicked in and it landed flat on Uranus. The concept is fun but the stage time could have been halved, and for some, more rehearsal time added.

Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens plays at The Kingshead Theatre until 21st May

6th May 2016
THEATRE REVIEW | 5 Guys Chillin’

Five gay, short-sporting, horny promiscuous guys with gobs of liquid G, copious consignments of crystal meth, in a smog of monotone club beats opens up a whole production-line of tinned STI’d-worms. ★★★

(more…)

10th February 2016