Theatre review: Unicorn

I usually tend to catch shows pretty soon after press night but it's taken me until midway through the run to get round to Mike Bartlett's latest, Unicorn; it's interesting timing though as one of its stars, Erin Doherty, is currently having a bit of a moment thanks to her role in Adolescence, and everyone's interest in her sandwich. Here she plays Kate, a postgraduate student with a bit of a crush on her former tutor, Polly* (Future Dame Nicola Walker,) who's also one of her favourite poets. We meet them having drinks on what is sort of a date, but a bit more complicated: Polly is married to Nick (Stephen Mangan,) still very happily, but they'd both admit their sex life has tailed off. Polly is attracted to Kate but isn't looking for an affair behind her husband's back: Instead she wants to propose that the younger woman join them as a third in the relationship.

It's a solution she also tries to convince her husband of in the second scene, before Nick and Kate eventually meet in the third to see if they hit it off. The first act ends with them all finally in the same room.

Bartlett's comedy-drama has a lot of interesting dialogue, funny lines, unexpected conversational diversions (who knew it would make such a strong argument for catching Netflix's reboot of She-Ra?) and well-drawn characters, but as my focusing on the way the first act combines the characters may suggest I was also drawn to the way it's structured, and the way James Macdonald's production plays with that structure. So this first act sees us get to know the characters and their situation as they negotiate the possibility of them including a third person into their marriage, and the reasons they might need to.

The second act takes us a couple of years down the line when the possibility is mooted again, this time with some more urgency as the tensions that were theoretical before have caused an actual rift. The playwright's work has often felt separate but connected, with some plays forming obvious pairings or collections and others spinning off from each other, and I did wonder if it was the high-profile display of his Cock three years ago that made Bartlett revisit the idea of a third person entering a relationship: Unicorn approaches the idea from a more mature, less toxic angle without sacrificing the potential for drama.

The play also ties in themes of a wider landscape of environmental and political uncertainty and collapse with mixed results; at times these references are a bit clumsily shoehorned in, but at others there's a sense that everything's connected, and the general sense of despair for the world at large opens up the characters to approaching their problems with a solution they might once have baulked at. Once again the way the play's structured is interesting, contrasting the opening, detailed character pieces with a fragmented, bittersweet and ambiguous final sequence. The cast are inevitably great, and in among the genuine emotion are some very funny moments - starting as the outsider who can puncture the couple's nervous energy means Doherty gets most of the funny lines, but the way Walker delivers a very dry line explaining what Spaghetti Junction is shows why she's a national treasure†.

Miriam Buether's deceptively simple design also elevates the production: Putting the actors in an enclosed space shaped like a quarter of a globe or the inside of an eye, the way Natasha Chivers' lighting creates shadows and reflections on the curved back wall lends atmosphere that helps with the play's ambitions beyond an entirely domestic story. But I also like a design that's been doing something we don't initially realise, and here the opening of the "eyelid" behind the actors when all three are together for the first time shows how we've been watching them in pairs in their own bubbles, where they can safely discuss possibilities. Putting the potential throuple together where something might actually happen suddenly leaves them more open and exposed, and any cosiness that the play might have had despite its often sexually explicit language is gone. Lots of interesting ideas flying around both script and production, but tied up in a show and performances that don't disappoint on the entertainment front either.

Unicorn by Mike Bartlett is booking until the 26th of April at the Garrick Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.

*I'm just going to assume her surname is "Amorous"

†You know how some actors have a "thing" they're known for in their performances? I'm going to suggest Nicola Walker's smile is one of these. I feel like we should talk more about how she can give virtually identical-looking smiles that actually convey everything from genuine joy to concealing the weight of the world on her shoulders.