Theatre review: A Third

With the Finborough Theatre turned into an upper-middle class living room for Alpha Beta, they couldn't venture too far from that for their alternate show. Hence A Third, Laura Jacqmin's look at modern marriage and how the reality of polyamorous relationships stacks up against the fantasy. After six years of marriage Paul (Jeremy Legat) and Allison (Asha Reid) are still in love and still attracted to each other, but want to pre-empt the seven-year itch and think threesomes - with very strict rules - are the answer. They find Jay (Will Alexander,) who's been "a third" many times before on Craigslist, and have a successful evening with him; next they go to a lesbian club night, where they convince Mariella (Lucy Roslyn) to join them. Not sure if they want to continue with the open relationship, the couple stop contacting both of them.

Theatre review: Chicken Shop

Bruntwood Prize winner Anna Jordan's Chicken Shop tackles both a coming-of-age story and a horrific social issue, a combination of subjects that could have conflicted, but it more or less pulls it off. Sixteen-year-old Hendrix (Jesse Rutherford) has been raised by his gay mother Hillary (Angela Bull) and her ex-partner Meg, but that relationship fell apart and Meg has long since moved out. Hillary has now moved in her new girlfriend Kate (Millie Reeves,) a flaky Australian in her twenties, whom Hendrix is attracted to and irritated by in equal measure. Bullied at school on the assumption that the son of gay parents must be gay himself, he tries to prove his sexuality to himself as much as anyone by visiting a brothel above a fried chicken shop. The naïve teenager isn't just nervous about sex, he's totally unprepared for the reality of Moldovan prostitute Luminita (Lucy Roslyn,) kept locked in her room 24/7 by her pimp Leko (John Last,) forbidden from opening the window and fed only on the chicken from the shop below.