Cock - Ambassadors Theatre

We can debate the whys and wherefore til we all go blue in the face but come on, people, £400 for an ordinary play theatre ticket is bonkers. Full stop.

Inspired marketing, a £175 ticket will now be considered a bargain.

It's definitely overpriced, no doubt about it. If the economics don't work out because of the size of the theatre you need a bigger theatre. If you cant fill a bigger theatre, you need a cheaper cast. Said it before seeing this, only Phil Daniels meant anything to me so I was definitely going because of the play and the casting did not affect my decision. But I hope the lack of props was a directorial decision and not saving costs so as to make more money! Frankly, it would have been nice to have a few more props and a little less miming.

As for the play itself it grew upon me despite the best efforts of the audience. Doubt it will be staged in a hundred years time but there are plenty of good lines and some genuine (as opposed to expected) laughs in it.

It was nice of them to lower them down to the bargain basement price of £175!

I do think there are some on here who don't think producers should be able to make money on a show which is silly because just recouping or losing money isn't viable for theatre in the long term and if you want to have things like affordable rush tickets, lottery etc then it needs to be balanced with more expensive tickets.

Yes I agree, it's not good optics. £460 is 1.2% of the average annual salary in the UK, so if people are getting the impression that's a typical cost for theatre tickets, it's definitely going to put some off completely.

To be fair- I think it will be remembered for Taron jumping ship.

What is the audience composition for this like? Can one tell if there are loads of Bridgerton fans?

Same. I’d say mainly 20-40 year olds.. a pretty well behaved audience considering todays standards

I haven't disliked a Mike Bartlett play before; I usually find him pretty agreeable; so I was surprised to discover I didn't enjoy his Cock. (Maybe his outpourings have improved over the years?)

If there's one prejudice I'll admit to, it's an impatience with people who can't make a decision. To have a whole play centred around one such individual was not going to end well.

Friday evening didn't even start well. The absence of an interval meant no fluids from mid-afternoon, so instead of enjoying a glass of wine in the bar, I was in my seat forty minutes early, finding myself unable to escape a soundtrack of excruciating, modern r'n'b numbers that, for me, was akin to listening to finger nails down a blackboard. This, and thirst, put me in a downer before the show had even begun.

The sightlines from the centre of row F in the Circle were excellent. The view of the bare set was less promising. There was to be no scenery and no props. Character actions, including sitting down, standing up and undressing, were signalled by an annoying head twitch, not unlike Greg's in Nighty Night albeit speeded up. Characters spinning at various speeds in concentric circles on the stage floor similarly added nothing: it even distracted me from the dialogue at times.

As acted/directed, there was no chemistry between John and his boyfriend, and it seemed a no-brainer that he should ditch him. John's dilemma is not to decide whether he is gay or bisexual -- he's self-evidently bisexual -- but which of two people to choose, both of whom he professes to love. The gender of those people was largely irrelevant.

An irritation for me was the decision to play the two male leads with slightly camp affectations. Why is it so rare for homosexual men to be portrayed on screen/stage in a manner where you wouldn't suspect their sexuality from their mannerisms and way of speaking? No wonder so many gay men are stuck in self-denial when they never see any rôle models they can relate to. (It took me until the age of 18 to accept I was gay, despite knowing I was attracted to other blokes, mainly because I knew I was nothing like any of the gay men I saw on telly.)

There was a natural break half-way through, presumably where an interval was originally intended, and the second act was more enjoyable than the dull, humourless scenes that preceded it. (I say humourless, but there were lots of girlie giggles at every reference to sex and sexuality, as though these were somehow still shocking.)

The second-half dinner-table scene -- sans table, sans chairs -- had the feel of a translated French play: there was a slight cultural dissonance. I wasn't sure why: possibly bad direction.

The stylised "movement" between scenes jarred mildly, sometimes crossing the line between evocation of a feeling and pretentiousness.

By the end, I was questioning what Bartlett's point had been. I had no answer.

Two stars.

Running time: 20:06-21:45
There was a break at 21:00 where an interval would have slotted in nicely. This would have suited the seven people in the Circle who took toilet breaks, despite the idle threat of no readmission. The area around me was more akin to a bar what with all the people clinking glasses as they topped up from ATG's overpriced bottles.

in the Ambassadors, just before lockdown, they poured a little too much wine into my glass, just above the measure line. Bar staff proceeded to tip this excess into a plastic cup. It happened in an almost empty bar, just before the break was over, so I felt very sorry for the next person who will be paying extortionate prices for some flat wine.