Review: COCK at The Ambassadors Theatre

John (played by Bridgerton’s Jonathan Bailey) is feeling disquiet about his 7 year relationship with boyfriend (Taron Egerton) a stockbroker who by joking and making light of John’s tendency to be animated while spotlighting his inadequacies with cooking, triggers a tailspin of self-doubt in his partner culminating in his decision to end the relationship.

Within two weeks, he is bedding a woman (Jade Anouka) who has approached him as a familiar face on their morning walk to work and he discovers an excitement, freedom and urgency to this previously unexplored side of his nature. The rest of the play deals with his inability to decide which of the two he should make a commitment with and his perpetual indecision focuses our attention (in an era of woke labelling) on whether it is better to decide what to be, or concentrate on what we should allow ourselves to feel.

All four players (veteran Phil Daniels completes the quartet as the ditched man’s crusty father) acquit themselves well — notably in the excruciatingly awkward dinner scene in which the competing objects of John’s affections get to size-up the competition and issue razor sharp barbs and indulge in explosive emotional tantrums.

Fortunately, the convex steel plates of the simple modern set by Merle Hansel (complimented by Paule Constable’s effective lighting states) focus the audience’s attention on the three concentric revolves on which the action and dialogue exchanges take place, accentuating the profoundly reflective and unsettling moments in Bartlett’s wonderful script.

Jonathan Bailey, Phil Daniels, Taron Egerton, and Jade Anouka and in Cock at the Ambassadors Theatre. Photo Brinkhoff/Moegenburg