‘Cock’ Review: Taron Egerton, Jonathan Bailey Lead a Blistering West End Production
variety.comDavid Benedict John is desperate: “It’s not a competition. Please, please it mustn’t be that.” Cue his girlfriend’s snapped retort: “Then what is it really?” Good question.
As revealed by the climactic round of mutual cross-examination when John (Jonathan Bailey) brings his girlfriend (Jade Anouka) home to meet his boyfriend (Taron Egerton), Mike Bartlett’s deliciously vicious, knockout play “Cock” is not so much a battle of the sexes as a battle of the sexualities.
In director Marianne Elliott’s (“Company,” “Angels in America”) blistering and magnetically acted revival, the 2009 play doesn’t just hold its own; it holds its audience rapt even when they’re laughing.Without dropping a moment of the play’s seriousness, laughter is the key element that differentiates and distinguishes Elliott’s revival from the original production, which, under the direction of James Macdonald, moved from the tiny Royal Court Upstairs to Off Broadway’s Duke Theater in 2012.
Although the play’s characters examine every connotation of its provocative one-word-title, its vivid ride comes explicitly from its emotions, ideas and language — but never its action.
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