Matt Minto and Michael Whalley Photo: Tim Levy
Mike Bartlett’s smash hit play Cock had its Sydney premiere at the Old Fitzroy Hotel on February 6. This delightful and incisive comedy is propelled by an excellent script full of great one-liners and bitchy repartee delivered with great comic timing by an excellent cast.
The production, presented by Red Line Productions and Mardi Gras Festival, stars Matilda Ridgway, Michael Whalley and Matt Minto under the clever direction of Shane Bosher.
Its intriguing plot presents a rather unusual relationship dilemma: John, in a seven-year relationship with his successful and attractive boyfriend, develops an unusual seven-year itch – he falls in love with a woman.
Matt Minto and Michael Whalley Photo: Tim Levy
Efforts to resolve this love triangle culminate in a painfully awkward dinner party where John is forced to decide “what” he is: gay? straight? Bi? The question is explored in a very thoughtful way and John comes to realise that for him it is more about “who” than “what”.
Nicholas Eadie, who was to play the boyfriend’s father (an unexpected guest at the dinner party), had to withdraw at the last minute due to illness. It is testament to the excellence of the production that 11th-hour replacement Brian Meegan needing to read from the script did not detract from the intensity of the drama.
And there was plenty of that.
Minto initially dominates as the outwardly vitriolic but inwardly vulnerable boyfriend but Whalley, who plays the confused John, gets better and better as the drama unfolds. Ridgway’s performance as the woman fighting for her man and an idyllic imagined life surrounded by children and grandchildren is both convincing and nuanced.
Michael Whalley and Matilda Ridgway Photo: Tim Levy
This is an entertaining and very funny play that encourages the audience to think. It invites people to consider what it is to love as it explores the intricate interchange that occurs in relationships.
The intimacy of the Old Fitz is an ideal setting, and the play is interestingly delivered in the round with the actors encircled throughout: no room for not getting it right and a great opportunity to see some very good acting up close and personal.
Cock is a great start to Mardi Gras season. Catch it before March 6 at the Old Fitzroy Theatre, Cathedral Street, Woolloomooloo. (Tues-Sat 7.30pm, Sunday 5pm) Price: $38 Adult, $32 Concession $22 Previews and Cheap Tuesday. Bookings: www.oldfitztheatre.com/booktickets/
