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Long, long ago, when Carrie Bradshaw was barely out of braces and Lena Dunham was in nappies, Clare McIntyre made her Royal Court debut with ‘Low Level Panic’, a play that takes a totally candid look at twenty-something women’s views on sex and themselves. Thirty years on, Chelsea Walker directs this slick revival, set in their grotty shared bathroom.
Mary is incredibly uncomfortable with the way men look at her. She's played with tangible discomfort by Sophie Melville, whose performance is the polar opposite of her breakrthoiugh role as the unapologetically sexual, sinuous lead in last year's National Theatre hit ‘Iphigenia in Splott’. Sitting on the toilet, she reads out skin-crawling extracts from a retro lads mag – but she can’t give phrases like ‘womb whitewashing’ the derision they deserve. She just wants men to stop looking at her.
Her best mate Jo (Katherine Pearce) wants them to start. Tired of digs about her skin and her weight, she gets lost in hilariously soapy fantasies of being stretched six inches taller, and lapping up the male gaze. Meanwhile, their prissy, perfume-spraying housemate Celia (Samantha Pearl) just wants to use the bath.
One of the joys of ‘Low Level Panic’ is that it feels like three mates, hanging out with a soundtrack of ’80s disco and hysterical laughter. Forget kitchen sink drama, this is bathroom tap drama, where the arguments are about who gets time in the tub, and who’s in hot water. With its locked door, the bathroom is a place of sudsy sanctuary from the men outside - but they creep in, via the obsessive attention the women pay to their bodies.
It would be tempting to look at ‘Low Level Panic’ and say that everything’s changed. That porn mags are going the way of codpieces. That women are no longer expected to laugh off groping or crude comments. And that the unsparing male gaze has been defeated by the glitter punch of selfie culture, where women can paint themselves pretty with pixels as well as make-up.
But these steps towards empowerment feel empty in a world where obsessive scrutiny of women’s looks is still the norm. Clare McIntyre’s play is often deliciously silly, but when the bubbles have popped, there’s a scum of residual anger that just won’t budge.