Four Play at King’s Head Theatre – review

From My Night With Reg to The Inheritance, countless plays depict gay relationships as minefields of sexual freedom mired in jealousy and guilt. Jake Brunger’s 2015 piece, reworked for this production, initially seems set to follow a wearyingly familiar path, before straying into unexpected territory.

First seen as part of the Old Vic New Voices writing project and revived twice since, Four Play starts with monogamous couple Rafe (Lewis Cornay) and Pete (Zheng Xi Yong) looking to scratch their seven-year itch with hunky friend Michael (Daniel Bravo). They’re insistent that Michael’s partner Andy doesn’t find out, unaware that the other pair has an open relationship.

It’s amusing to watch Cornay’s naive Rafe, in paroxysms of embarrassment, verbalise the proposition to Bravo’s cucumber-cool Michael, making it sound about as sexy as a trip to Tesco, before revealing it was all Pete’s idea. However, despite the crisp writing and playing, nothing feels particularly original.

Andy is told about the set-up and turns the tables on the other couple by demanding why, out of the two, they’d picked Michael. This iteration of Four Play differs from earlier ones by making Andy (previously Andrew, and played by Why Am I So Single?’s Jo Foster) non-binary. The alteration feels purely cosmetic though, the character’s pronouns changed whenever they occur, and the scene where Andy, whose flamboyance and highly strung sass are in marked contrast to the muscular, stoic Michael, confronts the sheepish Rafe and Pete comes off as a trifle disingenuous.

Foster’s performance is almost identical to the one they gave in last year’s Marlow and Moss tuner, but they’re a compelling stage presence with an impressive emotional availability and comic sparkle that render Andy the most sympathetic figure on stage. Foster is as good at movingly uncovering the deep-seated hurt beneath Andy’s brittle, witty veneer as the humour. Their delivery of Andy’s scornful response to Michael’s statement that monogamy frightens him -“spiders are scary, terrorism is scary, cancer is really scary…MONOGAMY?”- is an object lesson in building up a rare head of comic steam.

Cornay does lovely, funny yet truthful work as the hesitant Rafe, who goes on a fulfilling journey from milquetoast to self-possessed. As the object of everyone’s lust, Bravo finds colours and sensitivity in a role that could be a cliché in less accomplished hands. Brunger gives him a coruscating speech of self-disgust near the end of the play that successfully illuminates the character’s psyche and apparent amorality. The writing falters with Pete, the fourth member of the quartet, a gaslighting careerist with so few redeeming features that it’s hard to imagine what Rafe sees in him, so bland and non-specific that there’s little Yong can do with the role.

Jack Sain directed the original Old Vic version and his new staging here bounces between realistic and highly stylised (excellent movement work by Charlie Martin) and is lit with mood-altering panache by Daniel Carter-Brennan. Brunger’s gift for sparky dialogue is undeniable, but the play feels oddly dated; it may just be that the themes are overly familiar in gay dramas, or that what seemed provocative in 2015 registers less vividly in 2025.

The story’s ultimate conclusion for one of the couples is nicely satisfying, but for the other feels a bit like wishful thinking. I guess your personal relationship experience will determine which is which.