★★★☆☆
If the old King’s Head Theatre in north London had been a person it would have been an escapee from a black-and-white comic film, with its defiant eccentricity, gap-toothed charm and prevailing sense of style over practicality. So while there may have been excitement about the first press night of its new purpose-built 200-seat venue — just behind the original King’s Head pub — there was nervousness that this fringe big-hitter might have lost something in the process.
For those descending into the bowels of Islington to reach its auditorium, one obvious advantage is that it’s less exposed to the elements than its predecessor was (I write as someone who once operated a spotlight there during a thunderstorm). The theatre itself is streamlined and spacious, and maybe it’s just nostalgia for the old venue that makes it feel that the bars need a bit more wear and tear to become suitably atmospheric.
On a cold, gently snowy London night we were transported to the sunshine-saturated Californian coast. Here we witnessed the collisions and conniptions that arise between two couples at a San Francisco art gallery. The King’s Head has no artistic director at present — Hannah Price and Mark Ravenhill stepped down in June 2022 — but Sofi Berenger, whose former roles include being a producer at the Vault Festival, is the executive producer and acting CEO. It was she who decided that Exhibitionists — which in some ways feels like Noël Coward’s Private Lives for the Grindr generation — had the zip and spark for this much loved venue.
Bronagh Lagan’s production sweeps us into a world of modernist interiors and Botoxed buttocks — at the initial private view the characters are more fixated on each other’s bodies than they are on the deliberately vapid video art. Shaun McKenna and Andrew Van Sickle’s script takes its cue from vintage screwball comedies, introducing first Conor (Ashley D Gayle) and Mal (Jake Mitchell-Jones), then Robbie (Robert Rees) and Rayyan (Rolando Montecalvo), two wisecracking couples heading for separate breakdowns.
Although the gags and double entendres flow like New Year’s champagne, the production takes time to achieve lift-off. The trick with screwball comedy is to create dialogue that can fly elegantly while delivering the sting of truth; here, too often, there’s a sense of cheese and contrivance. Still, the script picks up pace as the exes Robbie and Conor discover each other and “elope”, leaving their abandoned paramours to follow in hot pursuit.
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Exhibitionists is spirited rather than definitive, but it’s not impossible to imagine the King’s Head’s legendary founder, Dan Crawford, watching it from the back of his swish new stalls and having a chuckle.
90min
To February 10, kingsheadtheatre.com
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