Conversations after sex by Mark O'Halloran. Park 90, 13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 until 17 May 2025, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Jake Bush.

Conversations after sex by Mark O'Halloran.  Park 90, 13 Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 until 17 May 2025,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“A scrappy evening.”

Mark O'Halloran's play about a young woman recovering after the death of her lover who spends the year having sex with a succession of men received glowing reviews when it was performed in 2021at the Dublin Theatre Festival and went on to get the 2022 Irish Times award for best new play. It  now makes its appearance in a new production directed byJess Edswards and one does wonder what all the fuss was about. It is a scrappy collection of encounters between She, played by Olivia Lindsay with different men – all played by the same actor, Julian Moore-Cook over a year. They range from touching to brutal , to some which fail and to one which leaves her with a sexual disease. The post coital scene with which it opens gives us Moore-Cook stark naked which these days is pretty well par for the course and just why She resolutely keeps her bra on come what during the rest of the evening is most odd as in Ireland She too got naked. Lindsay is far more modest which sabotages the various post coital tales we are treated to, as does the arrival of another woman which suggests there will now be a Sapphic enconter but is fact is her estranged sister come to try to repair their relationship. I suspect it is all very much a man's view of what a woman would feel and do, and in spite of decent performances by the cast proves a very unsatisying evening. It starts on a false note as Moore-Cook, supposed to be a young Brasilian, sounds, and remains throughout the rest of the play whichever lover he is impersonating, Irish, a false note which affects  everything that follows. From time to time the women in the audience clearly recognised some home truths about men's behaviour and it has been handsomely stage but it does stretch one's patience and why, given the close contacts taking place, no intimacy adviser is credited is another of the things one wonders about. O'Halloran's play has been slow in arriving and one is left feeling the journey was not really necessary.

Cast

Olivia Lindsay – She

Julian Moore-Cook – Male Roles

Jo Herbert – F

Creatives

Director – Jess Edwards

Lighting Designer – Bethany Gupwell

Set & Costume Designer – Georgia Wilmot

Sound Designer & Composer – Xana

Theatre, Play          2 May 2025.

Photo credit: Jake Bush