A catty, caustic night to remember: PATRICK MARMION reviews My Night With Reg at London's Donmar Warehouse

Published: 19:52 EST, 7 August 2014 | Updated: 04:51 EST, 8 August 2014

My Night With Reg (Donmar Warehouse)

Verdict: A landmark show

Rating: 4 Star Rating

Playwright Kevin Elyot died aged 62 in June, and there could hardly be a more fitting tribute than this fine revival of his greatest work.

The play has more innuendo than you’d get in a Carry On box set, yet it remains one of the most touching works in the repertoire.

It was an instant hit when it first surfaced in 1994 at the Royal Court theatre, tapping into the gay scene’s growing self-confidence. But it also immediately transcended its minority setting with an elegiac story covering themes of love and loss that everyone could relate to.

Brilliant: Geoffrey Streatfeild as Daniel and Jonathan Broadbent  as Guy in My Night With Reg

Brilliant: Geoffrey Streatfeild as Daniel and Jonathan Broadbent  as Guy in My Night With Reg

The scene is the fashion-able London flat of a plump, lonely queen called Guy (Jonathan Broadbent) who is discovered stiffening egg whites in his kitchen. Enter a shapely ex-public school friend who has been the object of his unrequited love since university.

As other guests arrive, among them a blustery Wildean art dealer (Geoffrey Streatfeild), they recall nights out with the titular Reg — an unseen man with a claim on each of their hearts.

The brilliant and frequently hilarious innuendo ensures this is not a play for the prudish or sexually squeamish. Even so, there is a fondness within the cattiness that masks and reveals an underlying sadness.

 

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A landmark production of a landmark play.

 

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