The Virgins at Soho Theatre – review

How do you negotiate something as complicated and problematic as sex when you are 16? Miriam Battye returns to Soho Theatre with The Virgins, a perceptive and funny play about a group of teenagers preparing for a night out while navigating the mysterious worlds of sex, reputation and peer pressure.

Chloe is chatting with her two friends in the bathroom. In the living room, her brother Joel and friend Mel are playing video games. Kissing a boy and coming home for chicken dippers is on the agenda, until Anya, a girl from the year above, arrives and changes the prospect to sex.

The cast of six is strong. Anushka Chakravarti and Ella Bruccoleri have lovely chemistry as best friends Chloe and Jess, with conversations that naturally overlap. Chakravarti shows a girl desperate to impress the newcomer, whereas Bruccoleri is visibly uncomfortable with unfolding events.

Molly Hewitt-Richards is adorable as chatterbox Phoebe; overwhelmed by the perceived weight of her virginity, then convinced she is more than happy to keep it. Zoë Armer embodies a young girl seemingly brimming with self-assurance as Anya. Her overt sexual confidence and knowledge is overwhelming to the others, even though her view of sex is, tellingly, “not even that bad”.

As Joel, Ragevan Vasan is sweetly unassertive, innocent and lacking in confidence. As Mel, Alex Boaden is overly relaxed and taciturn.

Jaz Woodcock-Stewart directs with intelligence and humour. Chloe and Joel stomp around, trading siblings insults with impunity and the girls have a wild dance-off in the living room. As Jess presses the fact that Anya is handling a serious sexual assault in her past, there is a noticeable slowing in pace and tone. The blackouts to delineate scene changes are effectively accompanied by loud, dramatic orchestral music.

Rosie Elnile’s set is divided so we see the quotidian bathroom and living room simultaneously. It is the picture of normality; toilet roll atop of the bathroom cabinet, a smudgy wooden-framed mirror and family photos in the living room.

Adolescent desire and losing your virginity have always been fertile ground for comedy and Battye’s script contains plenty. She really captures the essence of the frantic, fuzzy nights with your friends where cruelty and camaraderie overlap.

However, there is too much packed into an 85-minute running time. A sweet love story between two characters is undeveloped, as are more sombre notes regarding threatening sexual behaviour. Chloe states she has been called a whore since she was six years old; Phoebe has been flashed and Anya is the subject of explicit graffiti around the school. A girl is a sad virgin or a slut. These throwaway comments are their normality and ripe for exploration and discussion.

Although it could fill another play, the nod to the confusions faced by boys is also unfulfilled. Mel has a speech about his disappointment in the reality of women which is sudden and poetic, but is it a result of past experience, the real world clashing with his video games, or the fantasy world of porn?

The Virgins is a witty, thought-provoking and knotty production that takes an unflinching view of modern teenagers. With more focus, it has huge potential.