Jeffrey Dahmer Is Unwell

Comedies don’t often come much sicker, weirder or funnier than Jeffrey Dahmer Is Unwell, whose title pays irreverent tribute to a play that celebrated another Jeffrey, in that case the writer Bernard, but in fact plays like The Odd Couple as re-written by Joe Orton.

Just before Mike’s girlfriend Kate walks out on him, she bequeaths her cousin Alan to him, who turns into the flatmate from hell. And simply won’t leave. As a clash between two obsessives is orchestrated – Mike for model aeroplanes, Alan for the lives, histories and memorabilia of serial killers – a murderously funny comedy unfolds.

Alan is played by Alan Francis – an unappetising vision in his white Y-fronts and dressing gown, and even more gruesome, for reasons I won’t reveal here, decked out as a woman – and Mike by the appealingly pent-up Mike Hayley. But these two virtuosic comic actors – who also first wrote this play as an Edinburgh cult hit ten years ago – are even better when doubling as their respective, still weirder, brothers.

As propelled by director Anthony Neilson as a dark, fast comedy of furious laughs and dark obsessions, some of the momentum is lost in the second act, but you may not get that far: you might well have died laughing beforehand. The King’s Head may just have a substantial hit on its hands.

– Mark Shenton