Review: 5 GUYS CHILLIN at The Kings Head Theatre

"Chemsex" is a slang term which, you won’t be surprised to learn, means a combination of sex and drugs and within the gay community this tends to mean group sex enjoyed at a “chill out party"

There have been some attempts to persuade us that there’s a chemsex health crisis going on at the moment, mostly, as far as I can see by people whose livelihood is dependent on this being the case. Personally I think that’s rather a strong term to apply to something which only affects a small subsection of hedonistic gay men but drugs are addictive and financial and mental hardship and even fatalities have resulted from those indulging to excess.

5 GUYS CHILLIN explores this world in a sixty minute drama which has returned to the Kings Head Theatre in Islington where it was much admired a few months ago (including by our critic Nastazja Domaradzka) and following performances in Edinburgh and New York.

The Kings Head has been a venue for radical gay drama for decades now, the first such production I was involved in there with was 25 years ago so it’s great the tradition is continuing. There’s a study to be made about how the focus of these plays has changed over the years. Back then, as we fought for an equal age of consent and grappled with how to safely have any sex life during the AIDS crisis, we’d have been amazed that a few decades later there’d be plays about the perils of having too much sex and too many drugs.

This very clever play uses transcripts of real life statements from guys who have a lot of chem sex and I mean a lot. If this is a new concept for you, whatever you're imaging it’s too tame, we’re talking dozens of sexual partners over a sleepless drug fuelled weekend during which sexually transmitted disease and sexual violence might even be fetishised.

5 actors delivering monologues straight to us about this might not be that engaging, particularly as this was done very effectively in THE CHEM SEX MONOLOGUES performed at this same address recently. Writer and Director Peter Darney’s brilliant idea is to put the words into the mouths of 5 sexy, if mentally and physically messed up, gay characters within the dramatic context of a chill out.

One of the characteristics of such occasions is that people often chatter on and on, all perspective and inhibitions banished by the drugs, so it seems perfectly natural when each man starts telling their back story and reporting their sexpolits in such graphic detail. With the other men hyped up and heckling you get a very persuasive re-creation of these gatherings.

What lifts this to the next level is the exceptionally detailed directing and acting at the heart of this production. Virtually naked and right up close to the audience the performers throw themselves into recreating the sweaty, gurning, flashes of joy, terror, lust and paranoia of this world, with extraordinary commitment, truth and bravery.

Stuart Birmingham perfectly captures the brittle, tightly wound, hysteria of someone trying to ignore their demons, Adi Chugh is irresistibly watchable as a shy newcomer who slowly reveals deeper and deeper layers of abuse both of himself and others, Rick De Lisle is utterly convincing as an emotionally stunted addict with a death wish, Cesare Scarpone shifts expertly from a measured witty detachment to helpless compliance, and Elliot Hardy is heartbreaking as a wrecked mess of a human being, scarred, bleeding and still craving more.

I particularly admired the fact that the piece isn’t judgemental; it simply relates what’s happening at the dozens of gay sex parties that’ll happen in London next weekend.

This show is the closest you can get to experiencing an excess of gay sex and drugs without actually having an excess of gay sex and drugs!