Exhibitionists – King’s Head Theatre

Writer: Shaun McKenna and Andrew Van Sickle

Director: Bronagh Lagan

The King’s Head Theatre christens its brand new, purpose-built theatre space with Shaun McKenna and Andrew Van Sickle’s Exhibitionists, a contemporary reworking of Private Lives with two same sex couples tripped up by one’s partner’s desire for monogamy while the other desires an open relationship. While the writers stay close to the three Act structure of Private Lives, replicating the action in each, this updated version lacks the convincing fizz of Noel Coward’s pithy but emotionally illuminating dialogue and struggles to build a satisfying farce.

Conor and his new husband Mal attend the private view of their friend’s video art show but accidentally stumble across Conor’s ex-husband Robbie with new love Rayyan. Determined they loathe one another Conor and Robbie fight, then they run away together, leaving their bemused new partners to follow them. When the four of them finally come face to face, can a past love be reclaimed or will sex with other people always be too tempting?

McKenna and Van Sickle have made some clever updates to Coward’s original tale and the central dilemma of endless sexual freedom or finding the one is well realised through the play. And there is some fairly empathetic consideration of Mal and Rayyan’s position, characters who don’t want to conform to imposed ideas of their sexuality and promiscuity, and instead look for something more meaningful with a single person. Much of the comedy, as it does with the original play, comes from selecting a hopelessly mismatched partner who fails to fulfil the ideal so the contemporisation of this story with its art galley opener and fluid discussions about sex feel like a natural progression for the play, and Exhibitionists creates its world view pretty well.

But the play lacks the substance of its predecessor with many of its conversations becoming a series of sexual brags, boasts and advocacy for the non-monogamy that Conor and Robbie prefer. Across 90 unbroken minutes, the dialogue becomes repetitive and even static, while paying too little attention to the building of momentum and the pacing of various kinds of interactions. In the second section staged here in a motel, Conor and Robbie go from sex to fierce arguments at breakneck speed while Elyot and Amanda fell more subtly into linguistic and emotional traps that brought them to the same conclusion. The inclusion of a motel owner, Sebastian, who becomes a willing partner to them both only underpins the struggle to focus Exhibitionists, the writers mirroring their characters in finding them not enough on their own, ‘there’s always room for another” as Conor juicily points out.

McKenna and Van Sickle also decide, perhaps controversially, to embrace the violence in the play, moving it out of Act Two and into their third location where all five characters physically attack one another with slaps and punches. All of this is played for laughs, but like the Donmar Warehouse production of Private Lives in 2023, it is dangerous territory without a clear purpose or grounding in earlier behaviours. Coward wrote something much sprightly and, crucially, evenly matching both participants so making one or all characters potential abusers divests them of any sympathy or belief that they deserve a happy ending.

The performances are committed with Jake Mitchell-Jones as Mal developing most across the piece while Ashley D. Gayle’s Conor and Robert Rees’ Robbie proving unashamedly but consistently thoughtless throughout. Rolando Montecalvo’s character Rayyvan has left his wife and children for Robbie but the writing makes too little of his fledging emotional experience. The Coward model is a fine one but there is too much padding in Exhibitionists to justify 90-minutes in the cramped new King’s Head auditorium, but if you’re as open as Conor and Robbie, you’ll certainly be on intimate terms with your neighbours by the end.

Runs Until 10 February.