The Glass Supper (Hampstead Theatre)
On first presentation, The Glass Supper is a bit of a shock to the system. Written by Fantabulosa‘s Martyn Hesford, this cleverly titled play is a severely stylised portrait of an evening spent in the countryside, a clash between the quiet and the brash, the settled and the insecure.
As shown in his previous work, Hesford enjoys showing the chasm between public and private, the mask versus the reality. So what’s the story? There isn’t much of one, but in this context, that’s no bad thing. Jittery Marcus and confident Colin, who have been together for nigh-on twenty years, host former cruise (read: sexual) acquaintances and age-gappers Steven and Jamie for the night, unhappily joined by Steven’s one-time amour Wendy. As the night wears on and everyone gets more drunk, things disintegrate, but Marcus still can’t work up the courage to tell anyone to go home.
There’s excellent casting here from Lucy Casson. Michael Feast is forceful, fierce and occasionally vulnerable as Steven, a self-made millionaire with a taste for twinks, while Alex Lawther is horrifyingly brilliant as needy, spiteful Jamie, who, deep down, is really just lonely and in search of somewhere to call home.
The pair balance well against Michael Begley‘s Marcus, who almost stares the audience in the face in an attempt to suck them into his world and avoid having to deal with it himself, and Owen Sharpe‘s much more held-back Colin, who itches for excitement, desperate to be good for his husband, but easily led when there's fun to be had. Meanwhile, Michelle Collins more than holds her own as woman-about-town Wendy.
While some shows celebrate the epic, this is very much the opposite – a microcosm of personalities and emotion, described by the writer as ‘like watching tropical fish in a tank’. He isn’t wrong. Thanks to excellent direction by Abbey Wright, the first half is hysterically funny, and you hit the interval on a high, all the while knowing that dark times lie ahead.
The second act, while still good fun, and poignant to end, doesn’t work quite as well – it’s a little lopsided, mainly thanks to deliberate repetitiveness that begins to grate, a fight scene that goes on for far too long, some less-than-subtle explanations and a lack of concentration on the consequences of Colin’s actions. However, this is all much of a muchness in the grand scheme of things, and there's still lots of thoughts to be provoked from this section of the piece.
Good play, good cast, numerous laugh-out-loud moments, and only two hours long… Who could ask for more?
