Brutally funny double-take on gay love

THE PRIDE, Opera House, Manchester

COMPARE and contrast: Alexi Kaye Campbell’s spirited, brutal and often brutally funny 2008 four-hander is uncompromisingly about gay relationships, in the Fifties and the present day.

In an opening that might have been written by Terence Rattigan, the Fifties Philip (Harry Hadden-Paton) is the husband of illustrator Sylvia (Naomi Sheldon). They entertain her book collaborator, the clearly gay Oliver (Al Weaver) to dinner one night and it’s clear Philip has feelings for the other man that his self-control isn’t going to be able to overcome. The men undertake a clandestine relationship, much to Philip’s self-loathing.

In the present day, Philip is a photographer, Oliver a journalist and the pair have just split up because Oliver is addicted to anonymous sex. This time Sylvia is Oliver’s enabling friend.

In both scenarios and despite the theme, the straight character of Sylvia is the pivotal role, her actions and feelings underpinning or casting light on the attitudes and feelings of the men.

Virtually everyone is unhappy. In the Fifties the reason is obvious: it’s a time of repression and disgust, exemplified by the cruel scene in which Philip gets aversion therapy from a creepy doctor (smartly played, like other minor characters, by “Gavin and Stacey” actor Mathew Horne). Meanwhile in the present, the characters don’t allow themselves to be happy despite a time of anything goes.

Campbell’s play isn’t groundbreaking in any major way and sounds a bit formula-bound as it jumps between past and present. In practice it’s anything but: cleverly and sensitively written, constantly turning from pain and loneliness to outrageously funny rather than solemnity or anguish, it is enlivened by characters you can’t help liking, even if their self-destructiveness would be horrible to be around in real life.

The Fifties story strikes the more truthful tone, heartbreakingly captured by Hadden-Paton and Weaver, but especially by Sheldon as the wife let down both by her husband and her friend.

In contrast the present-day characters seem narrow and selfish; able to do what they like but endangering loving relationships apparently on a whim.

Jamie Lloyd directs with sensitivity and style, on a set (courtesy of designer Soutra Gilmour) that consists of two doors in a giant, tarnished mirror through which the players enter and leave.

A tarnished mirror up to nature? A cliche, maybe, but it’s readily forgiven.