Kenny Morgan, theatre review: Tale of torment and forbidden love

What a fascinating piece of theatrical archaeology combined with audacious new-build this is. Playwright Mike Poulton takes the real-life (homosexual) events that inspired Terence Rattigan’s most famous (heterosexual) play, The Deep Blue Sea, and spins from them an elegant, plaintive new drama about the destructive lengths to which we are prepared to go in the name of love.

It’s February 1949 — the ambience of Lucy Bailey’s production is one of wonderfully evoked post-war dowdiness, with occasional moments of pleasure snatched furtively rather than enjoyed in the open — and in a shabby Camden Town boarding house the eponymous young man has tried to gas himself. Luckily the meter ran out — oh, those evocative period details — and his fellow lodgers discovered him in the nick of time. Unsure what to do, they turn to the first name in his address book, that of a certain Mr Rattigan.

Thence we learn of the bind of the heart with which Kenny (Paul Keating), once a promising actor, struggles. For a decade the younger lover of the playwright (Simon Dutton, who bears a striking resemblance to Rattigan), he grew weary of being held at one unacknowledged remove from the centre of this urbane, successful man’s life. Rattigan’s desire and need to keep his sexuality hidden pushed Kenny into a self-lacerating relationship with cruel, bisexual Alec and now, at 29, Kenny sees no hope. It’s a quietly blazing performance from Keating, whose open, trusting face suggests a vulnerable man who is easily hurt. A quality evening.

Until June 18, Arcola Theatre (020 7503 1646, arcolatheatre.com)

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