'Coming Clean' at the King's Head Theatre

A few weeks ago we went to see the last play by Kevin Elyot - 'Twilight Song' at the Park Theatre - so it was only appropriate to go to see his first play, 'Coming Clean' at the King's Head Theatre, this week. Kevin Elyot wrote 'My Night With Reg' a decade later and it's interesting to see the similarities in characters and themes. He clearly had his own agenda and he stuck with it.

'Coming Clean' is the tale of four gay men in the early '80s, two of whom are in a committed relationship of five years but are allowed to 'play away', their long-term friend and the out of work actor who becomes their cleaner. There are only the four of them in this play (well, five, I suppose, if you count the friend who comes on as a German leather queen at the end) so it's very intimate and needs a strong story to keep it going. That's what puzzled me for a while - what is the play about and where is it trying to go? It took a while to get going.

Something that rather irrationally annoyed me was that Tony and William came on stage ten minutes before the play started to 'do acting' as the audience came into the theatre, being camp and eating with open mouths. Why? I mean, why? What does that add to the experience? It just annoyed me.

So, there we have it, with Tony and William talking about last night's cruising adventures when the would-be cleaner arrives in the shape of out of work actor Robert. William instantly fancies Robert who we subsequently learn in gay. Later we meet Tony's partner, an American writer and teacher, Greg. Their fifth anniversary dinner is cooked by Robert but William arrives late with black eyes from being gay-bashed in his own flat by a pick-up in a gents toilet. Tony takes William to hospital and, we later find out, that's the night that Greg and Robert get together for the start of their affair.

Four months later Tony arrives back early and finds a naked Robert bent over for Greg in their living room. An open relationship is one thing but being confronted by it is quite another thing. This spurs questioning about the nature of their relationship and whether it can continue. It took a long time to get there but this is the core of the play.

It was an interesting journey but I didn't really care for any of the characters. It was probably a brave play back in 1982, to explore gay relationships before the threat of HIV/AIDS when sleeping around and hedonism was ok. But it didn't touch me and I didn't care whether Tony and Greg's relationship worked or not. I didn't care about the disingenuous Robert or the uber-camp William. They didn't matter much to me. Not like the more fully-rounded characters in 'Reg' a decade later.

What really irritated me about the production were two relatively minor things, I suppose. Firstly was Tony's incessant faffing with this hair and putting it behind his ears. Not a minute went by but he faffed with his hair. Is that meant to be a gay trait or something, to signal that he's gay? Just stop it! The other irritant was the set, yes, the whole thing. It's set in Tufnell Park so it's not that glamorous but having worn through paint work on the door and wall paper that looks like it's going to fall off with damp is hardly the flat of a successful writer and teacher. And which writer only has about ten books on his bookshelves? Most annoying of all was having a shelf full of records above the stereo - why on earth would you have the records above the stereo waiting to fall on it rather then under the table the stereo sits on? I hated it.

I also had deep sympathy for the actor that played Robert who wandered round the set naked in the second half and who then knelt down at the front of the stage waiting to be buggered within a foot of the front row of the audience. He had nothing to be embarrassed about expect that none of the other actors even got down to their pants, so it was a bit obvious and hardly fair on the junior actor.

So there you have it, criticisms of the play but more so for the production that was just annoying in various parts. But it's well worth putting this on if only for the historical context.