Sweetmeat – Old Red Lion Theatre, London

Writer:Ivo de Jager

Director: Conor Geoghegan

Ivo de Jager’s gruesome and explicit two-hander Sweetmeat is one of those shows where you probably better pay attention to the trigger warnings, among which are cannibalism, self-harm, and suicide. In the first line of dialogue, one character says to the other “I was born to feel my blood vessels burst under your teeth” which broadly sums up where the writer is taking us. A version of Cat Stevens’ The First Cut is the Deepest plays in the background by way of foreshadowing. The play, first seen in a version at the Brighton Fringe in 2017, indubitably evokes a convincing internal world. Opinions will vary on whether you want to spend much time there. This piece is tough to watch and not for the squeamish.

Pill-popping, MDMA-snorting, Swedish interpreter Sigmund (Matthew Dunlop impresses here) has been thrown out by his girlfriend Agnes; unsurprisingly really as he is sexually aroused by watching horrific online videos featuring real-life violence. Plot shenanigans see him pitch up at the flat of odd Irish librarian Christian (Jamie McClean channelling Norman Bates from Psycho), who happens to be looking for a housemate. Christian’s late mum taught him “there’s beauty in even the darkest despair” and thinks “giving death is real love”. Having explained he may be a changeling imposter exchanged by fairies at birth for a doppelganger Christian asks, “You still want to move in with me?” You bet Sigmund wants to move in. These two are made for each other.

The duo soon bond over a shared passion for the Marquis De Sade, films by Pasolini, and bloody self-harm. Rarely has a love affair been so metaphorically and literally, all-consuming. Think Silence of The Lambs mashed up with Fifty Shades Of Grey, with a hint of Dracula and The Wicker Man thrown in for good measure. Avoid the first row if you fear Kensington Gore or are wearing something that cannot be dry-cleaned.

Quite how de Jager intends his audience to take Sweetmeat is difficult to decipher. Early on, the piece hints at pitch-dark comedy: Sigmund describes an ex-lover as “like fresh snow”, to which Christian responds, “You wanted to trample on him?” Then we realise these boys mean it. At times de Jager seems to want to give us a love story, though if so, it is a bitter misdirected love built around symbiotic, toxic self-destruction. “There is no forgiveness without blood,” says Christian. The piece communicates a particularly bleak view of the power of redemption.

Later on, there are elements of folk horror: the characters are, emotionally at least, cut off from the outside world and enveloped in a fog of terrible unease. Malign subterranean forces influence their actions, in Christian’s case supernatural and Sigmund’s the subculture of dark-web mutilation porn. The piece also makes a stab at exploring the complex psychological dynamics underpinning both sadomasochism and suicide. Ultimately Sweetmeat fails to explain convincingly why either of its characters finds it easy to move from fantasy to gruesome reality.

Runs until 23 November 2024