Theatre review: Prawn Play

Why yes, I am renaming this play so that Google doesn't send an AI bot to delete my blog.

Closing out the year at the Royal Court Upstairs is Sophia Chetin-Leuner's play that courts controversy - but also predictably early sell-outs - with its title: Prawn Play. Ani (Transphobia Ltd. Employee Ambika Mod) is a Milton scholar whose career's recently been boosted by a prestigious award, but whose private life is falling apart. Her relationship with Liam (Will Close) at first appears to be having trouble because he's jealous of her success, but that's just her deflecting attention from something he's genuinely concerned about: Her addiction to hardcore prawn, of a particularly violent and misogynistic type. She can't be sexually satisfied without it, and keeps him up at night with her addiction on her phone. Also, Walkers Crisps to release a spicy prawn cocktail flavour crisp called Hardcore Prawn, when?

Ani dumps Liam rather than have to confront the issue, with Close returning over the course of the show as a series of increasingly dodgy men she comes across and uses to fill the void.

Lizzy Connolly plays various women who all have as little luck making her see there's a problem as Liam did - from a student upset that Ani seems to be endorsing Milton's views on sexual assault as sexy, to a friend who treats the addiction as just a bit of fun until Ani comes to stay for a few nights and she's confronted with the reality of it. An addiction to prawn can leave your fingers smelling of seafood as well as more serious issues, and Connoly returns as a doctor who has to deal with the resulting infection, as well as as a more metaphorical figure who prowls the stage lasciviously, like a personification of Ani's libido - I didn't catch a name so let's call her Clint.

Josie Rourke's production also has a sense of having fun with the conceit before pulling the rug out to reveal just how dark the situation is - Yimei Zhao's set is a carpeted hole of concentric circles, initially appearing empty but with the characters pulling all sorts of props out of its folds and flaps as they build the play's world. But by the time Ani is sitting on the floor dead-eyed, having a joyless ladywank in front of her nice dad (Asif Khan) there's little to find funny about the situation.

What's interesting about Prawn Play is that it deals with the idea of prawn addiction from the perspective of a woman, not the demographic anyone immediately thinks of but one which clearly must also exist, and which allows Chetin-Leuner to give us a more sympathetic view of the character. It also means that, although a couple of Close's characters are seedier than others, it avoids putting the blame on the average man on the street. I'm not sure that by the end we're actually that much the wiser about the subject, and the attempts to delve into the causes of Ani's problem feel a bit cursory, but it's an interesting experiment carried out in style.

Prawn Play by Sophia Chetin-Leuner is booking until the 13th of December at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs (returns and day seats only.)

Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.