A new Terry Johnson play is something of an event, especially for comedy fans. His Dead Funny is set at a party for fans of Morecambe and Wise era comics, and features several of their routines. Another of his plays is set amongst the actors of Carry On (Cleo, Camping, Emanuelle and Dick). He knows, and thinks about, what makes us laugh.
The original 2022 London premiere of The Sex Party, which Johnson directed, was badly hit by actors getting COVID. Johnson as writer/director usually workshops his plays through rehearsals, reworking the script in the light of the particular cast. That’s not easy when you only have the full cast together for four days. So this production for Northern Comedy Theatre, written, directed, and cast by Johnson, is in a real sense the premiere the play deserves but did not get in 2022.
It’s about … a sex party, and it’s set in a suburban kitchen. The first half is reminiscent of a juiced-up classic Ayckbourn. Four couples, with a wide range of ages, are introduced and their dynamics skilfully brought to life. The focus is really on only two of them, though: the host and his decades-younger partner, and a married couple attending for the first time. Just before the end of the first half, it seems the married couple are relaxing into the situation, finding it renewing their somewhat frayed relationship. There is clearly going to be some kind of orgy. And without spoiling the play, that’s about all that can be said. A new, single, character arrives, and everything changes. If the tone of the first half is set by the William Blakeish line, ‘he who desires and acts not breeds pestilence’, the second is summed up by an exchange between two characters we have come to care about. One talks of graveyards, the other of playgrounds.
There’s a lot of talking about sex too, sometimes crude, sometimes witty, ranging from the anatomically blunt to the comically indirect. But the most powerful part of the production is an image. Johnson takes the bold decision to have the majority of the cast spilling out onto the stage naked after their orgy in the second half takes a bad turn. All of a sudden sex is not just Noises Off. The actors are now astonishingly vulnerable. That’s funny. They’re comically hiding behind the breakfast bar to get dressed in a stranger’s kitchen, politely averting their eyes. And it’s terribly sad, because we can see now some are distraught, that desire both connects, and twists and shears connections. And, of course, there are some bodies on display. Do we want to watch?
It’s a fine cast. The two main couples are the heart of the play. Lisa Gorgin as Gilly and James Lavender as her husband Jake begin as bickering stereotypes but bring out wonderfully the nuances of being alone and together in a marriage (with kids). Jamie Ballard brings a sympathetic melancholy to Alex the host, and Pearl Schomberg brings real heart to the emotional journey of Alex’s partner Hetty. Jackie Green brings poise and dry wit to the part of Lucy. The other actors – Zoe Teverson, Jamie Treacher, Jack Loy and Suzy Bloom – of necessity take more of a back seat, but do much to deepen the play, as humour, dominance, submission, libertinage, money, and nationality are added into the mix.
This 2026 remix of the play, closer to Johnson’s original wishes, is much better than what I can only describe as the one-eyed reviews of the London production would have you believe. Yes, perhaps it spreads its character focus too thinly at times, and perhaps its third quarter doesn’t sit completely comfortably with the rest of the play. But it’s subtle, funny, full of insight, and you care about the main characters. Whatever their state of undress.
Runs until 11th September at the Hope Street Theatre, Liverpool with a matinee on 10th September
Runtime: Two hours including interval
Reviewer: Polycarpus
Date reviewed: 5th September 2026
Theatre Muse UK rating: 4*
