Next Fall (Southwark Playhouse)

Accident victim Luke lies dying, and the hospital transplant team are hovering, hoping for a decision about whether his organs can or cannot be used to save lives that hang in the balance elsewhere.

In Geoffrey Nauffts’ Next Fall, his loving partner Adam has no say whatsoever in the process, and Luke’s parents are reluctant to acknowledge that their son might just have been in a long-term relationship with another man.

The cruel realities of the couple’s concealed love are further complicated by Luke’s fundamentalist Christian beliefs, revealed in a series of flashbacks, which by his own account make him a grievous sinner, saved from hell only by his acceptance of Christ as redeemer.

It doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs, but Nauffts’ deft writing and Luke Sheppard‘s sharp direction bring a great deal of humour to this examination of sexuality, friendship and family. Nancy Crane sparkles brilliantly in the opening scene as tactless, outspoken and deeply vulnerable Arlene, Luke’s estranged mother, riding roughshod over his friends with too much charm for anyone to realise quite what she’s doing. And Sirine Saba is completely engaging as Adam’s warm-hearted employer Holly. With a wonderfully expressive face and a voice brimming with emotion, she delivers some of the best lines of the show, including a cracker about her hairy PE teacher.

But all the relationships in Next Fall are swamped by religion and fear in noughties Manhattan. Charlie Condou plays Adam with a quiet intensity bordering on caution, that makes him appear uneasy at times. His performance is stronger when Adam’s bubbling over with rage and frustration. Why, indeed, should he join in with de-gaying the apartment and then make himself scarce, just because Luke’s dad Butch is coming to call?

Mitchell Mullen‘s powerful physical presence makes his alpha-male posturing as Butch entirely convincing – and his final collapse all the more shocking.

Martin Delaney is a clear-eyed, adoring Luke, whose love of God and fear of his dad dominate his life in equal measure. His attempts to ‘save’ Adam and secure him a place in heaven are touching and almost comical, were it not for the self-loathing behind them.

Throughout Next Fall there’s great lighting work from Howard Hudson, and an economical, effective design from David Woodhead.

This is a thought-provoking and challenging play on many levels, but it’s also a story of forbidden love, and the passion between Adam and Luke is more told, than felt, in this production.

Next Fall runs at Southwark Playhouse until 25 October 2014