Theatre review: Positive

The first generation of HIV/AIDS plays kicked off with As Is, which was seen at the Finborough in 2013 and is currently being revived at Trafalgar Studios. But we now live in a very different environment in which HIV is much more treatable, but on the downside this has led to confidence bordering on flippancy about unsafe sex, with rates of infection, especially among young gay men, on the rise again. So Shaun Kitchener's play could perhaps be part of an overdue new wave of theatre on the subject. It's one in which, as the title suggests, Positive doesn't just have to be the test result but can be the outlook too, but the fact that it's not an automatic death sentence doesn't mean everything goes smoothly either. Benji (Timothy George) was diagnosed HIV-Positive a year ago, and although he's found a supportive friend and flatmate in Nikki (Nathalie Barclay) he's rarely ventured out of his room in that time except to go to work.

Theatre review: Barking in Essex

How funny is the idea of Sheila Hancock saying "cunt?" Barking in Essex is confident that it will stay funny for a little over two hours. Spoiler alert: It doesn't. It's not often a new play opens directly in the West End, and this one is new in the sense of "new to the stage" as opposed to "newly written" - unless Clive Exton was such a workaholic that his death six years ago didn't slow him down. An opening scene that revolves around jokes about Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and the long-since cancelled Weakest Link is a reminder that there wasn't a huge rush to bring this one to the stage. Was it a lost gem just waiting for the right cast to become available? Or was it gathering dust until the popularity of The Only Way Is Essex made producers sniff cash in anything with the county's name in the title? Well, I haven't exactly been subtle in my introduction, clearly it's going to be the latter.

Theatre review: The Leisure Society

A French-Canadian black comedy of marital boredom, The Leisure Society looks at the kind of people who have everything but are still miserable (not to mention the kind of people who live in a mansion with a pool but insist they're "not rich.") Peter (Ed Stoppard) and wife Mary (Melanie Gray) have a year-old son who still cries constantly, and are trying to quit cigarettes and alcohol to help them cope with looking after him. They've invited recently-divorced Alpha-male friend Mark (John Schwab) round to dinner, where they intend to friend-dump him. Mark turns up with much-younger fuck buddy Paula (Agyness Deyn¹) however, and events take a different turn.