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The word from early previews of Anthony Neilson’s (non) sex comedy ‘The Prudes’ was of a show that had stepped over the line in its desire to provoke.
But Neilson and his casts use an elaborate devising process to craft his plays, and despite there still being a couple of noticeably near-to-the-knuckle moments, ‘The Prudes’ as of press night is a very funny, very excruciating, mostly relatable comedy about a long-term couple who are struggling to relight their fire.
Jimmy (Jonjo O’Neill) and Jess (Sophie Russell) have been together for nine years. In the beginning, there was a lot of sex. For the last 14 months, there hasn’t been any. Tonight, though, they’re going to have sex and they’re going to do it right here, in front of us.
O’Neill and Russell are flat-out brilliant as a couple laid low by overfamiliarity and insecurity. They’re evidently still fond of each other, but their relationship seems to be mired in a thousand tiny neuroses, minor grudges and points of guilt. It is not a sexy cocktail. At the same time, they’re too solicitous of each other’s feeling to have the frank conversation needed to talk their way out of their current situation. Instead, he surreptitiously wanks over porn and she pretends not to notice.
‘The Prudes’ unfolds with the rhythm of a good stand-up show: O’Neill and Russell address us directly, pleading with us for the understanding neither feels they’re getting from the other. There’s almost the air of a sort of existential gameshow, with copulation the final round: on Fly Davis’s pink-carpeted set, the two make their cases bound by a set of half-acknowledged rules – they can only hear each other when the light is on both of them, for instance.
It is great fun but does kind of fluff it in the final furlong, when an unasked for Big Reveal suddenly offers a direct explanation for the collapse in their sex lives. It’s not quite enough to knock ‘The Prudes’ off course. But it throws in a crass curveball that it would probably have been better off without. Still, if ‘The Prudes’ ends by shooting its load ill-advisedly, it is, up to that point, far from a flop in the sack: one of the most purely pleasurable comedies the Royal Court has hosted in recent times.