Showing @ Northern Stage at King’s Hall, Edinburgh until Sat 23 Aug (not 14, 21) @ 18:35
Although sex is still an uncomfortable topic for some, television shows like Sex Box are eroding the Victorian prudishness still inherent in British sentiment. Charlie is a sexually gregarious young woman who asks her gay flatmate Bunny to set her up with his black best friend. What could go wrong?
Plenty. The characters aren’t believable, particularly the love interest, who is played with the wits of an irritating Forest Gump. The ridiculousness of his personality is later exemplified in his “rapper” transformation – a tired impersonation – and his cartoonlike vacillations between violent homophobe and desperate wooer. At times the characters are so extreme, it’s like the show is trying to be farcical but it doesn’t have the silliness or comic timing for this, instead sitting gracelessly in no-mans-land, neither cutting edge comedy nor satirical drama.
Also none of the character relationships appear natural; Charlie’s attraction to the bumbling baldy is hard to believe, but for Bunny to hide his homosexuality from his best friend of twenty years while simultaneously hitting on him is borderline absurd. Mentions of social taboos lack the structure to make any meaningful comment and instead of playing as edgy, feel gratuitous and underdeveloped. It’s like a remake of American Pie fifteen years too late. Even the show’s technical aspects are bad. The lighting is often so stark it wipes away the residue of any warmth felt towards the characters left by the woeful writing, and the complexity of the revolving set is unnecessary, tedious and looks scrappy when rotated at the wrong angle. Somewhere in here is an interesting and needed examination of the British tendency to tiptoe around uncomfortable topics – it just needs a rewrite.