REVIEW: Coming Clean at the Trafalgar Studios

Coming Clean is a production you know is going to be good. Having won the Samuel Beckett award back when it was first performed in 1982 as a ground-breaking play and Kevin Elyot’s first of many successes, it had a successful revival back in 2017 at the King’s Head Theatre, followed by a successful month 3 week run in January 2019. Therefore, with this 2020 production being the same in the same venue as last time (except for Jonah Rzeskiewicz is playing Robert), you know it’s tried, tested and works well.

The Trafalgar Studios theatre is quite a cushy studio, especially when packed full of people to see Coming Clean. This is quite an intimate and refreshing story about a gay couple (Tony and Greg) who live together in Kentish Town, 1982, whose relationship is far from monogamous. However, when Tony employs a handsome cleaner, Robert, to clean their flat, Tony and Greg’s differing values on love and relationships are challenged.

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Coming Clean at the Trafalgar Studios 

Following a critically-acclaimed, sell-out run, the smash-hit play by Kevin Elyot, writer of the landmark drama My Night With Reg, returns to Trafalgar Studios 2 in January for a strictly limited four week season. Tony and Greg seem to have love all figured out. They’re in a committed relationship but with room for a little more on the side whenever it takes their fancy. The only rule? Never sleep with the same man twice. 

REVIEW: Coming Clean at Trafalgar Studios

Run down to the Trafalgar studios before it’s too late and see this revival of Kevin Elyot’s comedy “Coming Clean”, led by four fantastic actors and gifting you with laughs, shock, love and friendship.

Written in 1982, Elyot’s play tells the story of Tony, his American boyfriend of five years Greg, his good friend Will and their cleaner (who is also an actor) Robert. Set entirely in Tony’s sitting room, we enter a smoke-filled and cosy 80s London apartment with its filthy walls and messy couch. Tony and Greg are in a loving but open relationship, and Tony likes to have casual sex and go to bars with his friend Will to pick up men. Things seem fine for the couple until Robert enters the picture and their intimacy and relationship pact start to suffer.

Over the course of two hours, we are highly amused at the banter and warm friendship between Tony and Will, and also slightly betrayed when the young Robert becomes Greg’s lover. It’s as if a bubble has been burst, and between Will suffering from a homophobic attack and Tony wondering about monogamy, things are shifting.