Stage: Modern Love

Never a company to shy away from the controversial, Chichester Festival Theatre have engaged three of the UK’s most exciting young actors – Luke Thallon, Matthew Needham and Isabella Laughland – to appear in Kate Hewitt’s new production of Mike Bartlett’s Cock, which will play in the round at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre.

This timely production will be the first revival of Bartlett’s Olivier Award-winning play since its 2009 premiere. Sexual fluidity has never been more openly talked about than now with a new generation discussing frankly the idea of being non-binary in terms of both gender and sexuality.

Has John straightened out? After years glued to his boyfriend, the couple have been through a sticky patch, and now John’s attached to someone else. Someone who is different in every single way. But can John give her what she wants, when he’s never been with a woman before?

Sexual fluidity has never been more openly talked about

Funny and eye-openingly fresh and frank, Cock is a provocative peep into relationships in these days of oscillating identities. It tussles with knotty twenty-first century questions: can we – and should we be allowed to – change if we want to?

Mike Bartlett is one of this generation’s leading writers for stage and screen. His award-winning work includes King Charles III and the hit television series Doctor Foster. The Olivier Award-winning Cock premiered at the Royal Court and off-Broadway in 2009.

Luke Thallon, who plays John, was nominated for the Evening Standard’s Emerging Talent Award for his role in Mike Bartlett’s Albion at the Almeida Theatre. Matthew Needhams theatre work includes The Twilight Zone and The Treatment, and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing; he previously appeared at Chichester in Bingo and The Grapes of Wrath. Isabella Laughland’s theatre work includes Cordelia in Chichester’s 2013 production of King Lear.

Chichester Festival Theatre
28 September – 27 October
www.cft.org.uk 01243 781312