Straight

  TNT

 

I hadn’t heard of Lynn Shelton’s 2009 movie “Humpday,” so can’t tell where most of the credit for the spot-on killer dialogue lies, but if the original is anywhere near as funny as DC Moore’s stage version it’s definitely worth viewing.

Straight takes the exploration of male bonding to a new comic level when the cosily contented (if financially straitened) lifestyle of happily married Lewis and Morgan is disturbed by the unconventional arrival (you’ll never forget it!) of his best buddy from university. Off the radar for seven years whilst he’s been travelling the world, rootless Waldorf makes their plans for parenthood and a functioning air extractor seem suddenly unsatisfyingly limiting to Lewis, and neither man is ready to back down from a late night drunken dare involving sex, a camcorder and lots of lube.

Admittedly I didn’t completely buy into the pact which gets them booked into a wallet-bustingly expensive country hotel. That apart, though, Richard Wilson’s production is flawless and it’s a long time since I’ve laughed so much at the theatre.

But I was also touched by the potential for hurt as Jessica Ransom’s Morgan pushes at the boundaries of understanding to keep her marriage safe, and (finally stripped to their underpants) Henry Pettigrew’s hesitant Lewis and Philip McGinley’s bearded, free-spirited Waldorf awkwardly negotiate overlapping territories of art, pornography and male friendship to perfection.

Bush Theatre, Uxbridge Road, W12 8LJ
Tube | Shepherds Bush
Until 22nd December
£15 - £19.50bushtheatre.co.uk