My Night With Reg (NHB Modern Plays)

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Set in 1985, My Night With Reg is a story of friendship amongst a group of gay men, during a scary time in history – the AIDS epidemic. It’s a story of unrequited love, promiscuity, and the disastrous effects of that time. There are things that happen in the dark between a man and a woman that sort of make everything else seem unimportant.

Utterly bewitchin’ … John Sessions with David Bamber and Anthony Calf in My Night With Reg at the Criterion, London, in 1994. Photograph: Alastair Muir/Rex Capturing everything that is both wonderful and painful about love in all its guises, this is a triumph that is unlikely not to charm the pants off you. And then there’s Eric, the naïve Brummie 18-year-old who’s just moved down to London and, whilst coping with sorting out his own sexuality, finds this group’s lifestyle bewildering and their promiscuity upsetting. Given that theatre is not exactly an art form synonymous with staunch heterosexuality, it’s surprising how few shows about LGBT lives make it into the West End. But Kevin Elyot’s poignant comedy ‘My Night with Reg’ is deservedly doing so for the second time. Robert Hastie’s pitch-perfect 20-year-anniversary revival for the Donmar has bagged itself a transfer, as did the original Royal Court production. My Night With Reg stars Nicholas Anscombe (BBC’s Requiem, Bread & Roses Theatre’s Under The Radar) as privileged yet lost John; Steve Connolly as prowling Benny; Marc Geoffrey as long-suffering Bernie; David Gregan-Jones (Russell T Davies’ upcoming Boys with Channel 4) as the flamboyant and Byronesque Daniel, and newcomer Alan Lewis (a trained dancer and singer-songwriter) as the insightful ingenue Eric.When the tragic and the inevitable happens, revelations come to light at the post-wake gathering, and Guy must juggle the chaos of unrequited love, betrayals of friendship sworn to secrecy, loneliness, relationship breakdowns and the cruelty of consequence. The play is centred around kinship and betrayal, community and deceit, love and loyalty. Gillian Anderson as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire at the Young Vic Streetcar Named Desire My Night With Reg is a nice show with a beautiful set design but I felt the themes of the show were glazed over somewhat and it was a missed opportunity to highlight an important story. The _omappvp cookie is set to distinguish new and returning users and is used in conjunction with _omappvs cookie.

My Night With Reg, the Olivier and Evening Standard award-winning bittersweet comedy about a group of gay men coming to terms with AIDS written by ‘Birmingham boy’, the late Kevin Elyot, makes a long-awaited appearance at The Crescent. What gives this production a special twist, is that it is directed by Rod Natkiel who was a friend of Kevin Elyot, a fellow drama student and who acted with him. Their interactions on stage seem enervated by the end. Not through want of trying but none of it feels like the tragedy – nor the comedy – that it should.

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This is not entirely a source of hilarity: Aids looms over ‘My Night with Reg’, with two of its acts set in the aftermath of funerals. In certain respects, Hastie’s production feels like a period drama about a chapter in recent history now largely closed (in the West, at least). But it’s about more than just the ’80s: it’s about a specific generation of gay men, who came of age during a period of great liberation, only to find Aids and social respectability curbing their lifestyles. It is telling that of all Elyot’s characters, affable youngster Eric (a winsome Lewis Reeves) is the one who displays a moderate attitude towards sex.

The words HIV/AIDS are never mentioned in My Night With Reg. But the deadly immunodeficiency virus that scythed through gay communities in the 1980s is the spectre that overshadows the action in this seminal drama. Matthew Ryan’s intimate production is staged in the Turbine Theatre under a railway arch at Battersea Power Station, and the rumbling of trains overhead for once seems to suit the action, accentuating the ominous sense of dread that builds towards the quietly devastating final scene. The second half moves away from this reductionist approach and allows us to get a better sense of what’s not being said, by focusing more on silences and looks shared between the characters as they come to terms with Reg’s death and the uncomfortable conversations it prompts. The transition from the night of Reg’s funeral to the aftermath of Guy’s death is executed well, catching us by surprise to gently remind us of the debilitating AIDS crisis and its profound, almost inconspicuous impact on those who watched their loved ones pass away one by one. The light design is exceedingly minimal and unfocused, sometimes drawing our attention away from the characters onto the set. The set design by Lee Newby, whilst visually stunning, is used sparingly and only offers us an insight into the kind of life that Guy wanted to share with a partner but was never able to. My Night With Reg traces the story, from the summer of 1985, of six gay men in London as their world begins to unravel because of the AIDS epidemic. Three of the characters were at university together twelve years previously and those characters and their memories are strongly based on people and life at Bristol university in Kevin Elyot’s and Rod Natkiel’s time there as Drama students.

Dogfight

Kevin Elyot, who died in 2014, was born in Handsworth, went to King Edwards School, Birmingham and then to Bristol University, where he studied Drama. Rod Natkiel also studied Drama at Bristol University. He is a professional director who works pro bono for The Crescent, with previous productions there being For Services Rendered, The Laramie Project, The Lovely Bones and, recently, a spectacular 5-star reviewed The Girl on The Train. Rod has a long association with arts and entertainment in the region, having been responsible for all BBC Pebble Mill’s network television and radio output for seven years in the late 1990s and he was Chair of West Midlands Arts for four years, helping to secure funding for the Crescent’s new building which opened during his tenure.