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Press reaction to current Blowing Whistles production
Spectator, October 2008
"The pleasure of this production, deftly directed by Pete Nettell, is the range of its accomplishment. The first act is a dashingly witty comedy of manners and the second act ascends into an agonising and beautifully detailed portrait of a relationship foundering on the rocks of manipulation and deceit.
Best of all, it’s a wonderfully eloquent lament, a tragic meditation on gay disillusionment. Sexual deregulation has led gay men into a sort of ecstatic purgatory, a vodka-fuelled Walhalla of drag-queens, rubber-fetishists and Spartacus-lookalikes, a competitive merry-go-round of sweet dreams and fractured hopes, a hedonistic tunnel-of-love whose defining silhouette shows a genuflecting gobbler crouching in the briney cubicle of a nightclub toilet seeking some mystical union between lust, intoxication and sexual adrenalin. For gay men this is everything they could want and more. And it’s not enough."
 QX, October 2008
"If the London gay scene had a high definition, warts-and-all mirror held up to it, Blowing Whistles would be a scarily accurate reflection... Catch this fantastic production at all costs"
Big Issue, October 2008
"Those who think gay relationships differ to straight ones should go and see Matthew Todd's play... This is his first play and what an accomplished debut it is, too... Pete Nettell’s production is a most enjoyable romp and notable for an outstanding performance by Paul Keating as Jamie, every facial expression and intonation honed to perfection. Not just for the camp following"
Sunday Express, October 2008
"Blowing Whistles provides a self-critical and revealing portrait of contemporary gay life; as the lives of three men, a 17-year-old on the cusp of growing up, a 37-year-old who refuses to do so, a 32-year-old who finally wants to, collide and the relationship between the two older men unravels.
Matthew Todd's play is refreshingly big on laughs but even bigger on the no less universal matters of the heart, which is captures with great art"
Evening Standard October 2008
"Matthew Todd fashions a scintillating comedy of gay sexual morals and manners in Blowing Whistles…. and makes a serious, dramatic impact.
Audiences of all sexual persuasions should be absorbed by the dilemma posed in Todd’s play — a gay, contemporary equivalent of Ibsen’s Doll’s House but without its gravity.
Should partnerships, married and unmarried, gay-civil and uncivil, be sustained when one partner craves monogamy and the other wishes sexually to stray, relishing the challenge of irregular one-night stands?
The scene, in Pete Nettell’s vivid production, is a modish London apartment. Here, 10 years into their gay but not civil partnership, Stuart Laing’s Nigel, 37 but owning up to just 32, titivates in preparation for his latest Gaydar date, 17-year-old Mark. His disapproving lover, Paul Keating’s finely drawn Jamie, tries to stem the rising tide of sexual excitement with tart put-downs as he vacuums.
The needy Mark, played with assurance and conviction by impressive newcomer Daniel Finn, who sheds his clothes to the manner born, exposes, exploits and extends the gulf between the lovers.
A scintillating comedy of gay sexual morals and manners"
Time Out, Critics Choice, October 2008
"I can’t get enough of my gorgeous boyfriend – having sex with other men." So says old romantic Nigel to Jamie, his partner of ten years, after revealing that he has ordered them an anniversary treat off the internet: a night of sex with a teenager from Croydon who goes by the name of "Cumboy17". "I’d have been happy with a cake," smiles Jamie, who is starting to have doubts about whether his relationship with Nigel is going in the right direction.
At heart, Attitude editor Matthew Todd’s funny and rather moving play is an old-fashioned, mainstream treat. Some may find the sexual content (a little nudity, plenty of explicit talk) mildly shocking, but structurally "Blowing Whistles" is just like any other well-made bourgeois drama: if there’s a whiff of Fassbinder about the initial set-up, there’s an equally powerful aroma of "A Doll’s House" about the ending.
Todd’s play would be even stronger if he’d developed interesting inchoate plot strands about ageing and class a little more firmly. And Cumboy17, or Mark as soft-hearted Jamie prefers to call him, is made the catalyst of too many plot twists to become fully credible, even in Pete Nettell’s deft new production. But Todd’s knack of placing his funniest lines at precisely the points of maximum emotional stress suggests a real dramatic talent.
"(Blowing Whistles) deserves a long life, for it brings an articulate humour to issues of concern to both the gay and straight worlds and, as directed by Pete Nettell, is exceptionally well acted" The Times
Homovision October 2008
"The gloriously buff Paul Keating plays the heartbroken Jamie, while former EastEnder Stuart Laing portrays gay PR whore Nigel to the buff blonde himbo Mark - played by Daniel Finn. Littered with now now now London references - (Nigel regularly gets off his tits at Fire) - Blowing Whistles is a must for any 21st century capital queer. It spunks up questions about morality, relationships and love all over the face of the modern de-politicised label-loving gayer, and is the wake-up call for all those who are trapped in the Fire, Gaydar and drugs continuum. You’ll be LOLing one minute at Keating’s comedy camp and crying the next as he finally wakes up from his slumber. Go and see it now."
Whatsonstage.com October 2008
"It may be aimed at a niche gay market, but Matthew Todd’s Blowing Whistles – first seen at the Croydon Warehouse three years ago and now revamped in Peter Nettell’s superbly cast production – is a very grown up, almost conventional, sexual comedy.
Daniel Finn plays [a] frighteningly mature but deadly teenager with remarkable assurance. Stuart Laing is spot on in the difficult role of Nigel, fully conveying the unattractive emotional restlessness that pushes the domestic arrangements to the limit; and those arrangements are touchingly maintained by Paul Keating in a brilliant performance of prissy delight and exasperation. Keating is wonderfully funny but finally heart-breaking in this genuine surprise package, the brightest gay play for ages."
"SUPERB…. will leave you with a smile on your face, but also toying over a few preconceptions too."
GAYDAR NATION
The Stage October 2008
"Matthew Todd’s affecting, provocative play makes a highly deserved but bold move to a mainstream cross-over at the refurbished Leicester Square Theatre, without compromising on either its frank, explicit interactions - some of them nude - or the complicated set of emotions it embraces.
But though it begins conventionally enough as a gay sex comedy - and Todd is particularly adept at some stinging, abrasively funny one-liners to propel it along its way - it is a play that subversively ambushes its audience, and its characters, to take both into darker, more thoughtful territory.
It takes a mature look at immaturity, and how the sex-on-demand culture that some gay men live by actually compromises their relationships - with each other as well as themselves. Not since Larry Kramer shone a blazingly self-critical eye on the gay lifestyle has a playwright dared to confront such issues so directly, dealing with frankness, fearlessness and thoughtfulness how a long-standing relationship finally implodes in the wake of those overpowering pressures.
It’s a play with big laughs, heart and balls (in every sense) - but unlike its lead character, thinks with its mind instead of its penis. Pete Nettell’s swift and sexy production is animated by a performance of touching depth by Paul Keating, appealing but all-too-recognisable vacuity by Stuart Laing and a highly promising debut from Daniel Finn as the young man facing an odyssey of his own."
Press reaction to previous productions of Blowing Whistles |
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