For a play built on the foundations of a sex comedy, its ideas about love are far more provocative.
It might leave the pearl-clutching matinee crowd squirming—but that’s exactly the point.
🗞️ Read the full review at theatregb.com/2025/02/14/r...
Unicorn is, at its core, a play about assumptions.
I assumed I knew what this play would be, just as we assume we understand love, control, and the shape relationships should take.
Bartlett dismantles those certainties, exposing the contradictions, power struggles, and unspoken fears beneath them.
Where the play occasionally falters, it’s lifted by a cast truly at the top of their game.
🔹 Stephen Mangan (Nick) wears the role like a glove.
🔹 Nicola Walker (Polly) is both quietly affecting and deeply funny.
🔹 Erin Doherty (Kate) is the standout. A sledgehammer to the couple’s repression.
The fact that Unicorn is explicitly set in 2025 is no accident. Bartlett presents polyamory as the next great social revolution. A response to monogamy’s failures. A blueprint for love & survival. But does Unicorn interrogate this enough?
Bartlett is a master at taking ideas that could be played for easy laughs and twisting them into something weightier.
Here, the British sex comedy is the Trojan horse; inside is a play about identity and repression. This isn’t just a play about sex. It’s a play about what we use sex to cover up.
Beneath the comedy, Unicorn is a play about:
🌀 Ageing
💭 Fantasy vs Reality
🔪 Repression & Power
🎭 The lies we tell ourselves
And whether we can ever be truly honest—not just with the people we love, but with ourselves.
Nick and Polly, a middle-class couple in a midlife lull, decide to shake things up by inviting a younger third—Polly’s student Kate—into their relationship.
What starts as a brisk, innuendo-laden romp quickly deepens into something unsettling and existential.
I’ll admit it—I had Unicorn pegged all wrong.
Maybe it was the title. Maybe it was the playful branding. Maybe it was the cast of three of Britain’s most recognisable TV actors.
Whatever the reason, I expected something fun, flirty, and maybe a little forgettable. Of course, that was my mistake.
🦄 Unicorn isn’t what you think it is.
In Mike Bartlett's newest play, you're lured in with the promise of a cheeky British sex comedy—but beneath the laughs, this play rips apart assumptions about love, power, and polyamory.
So how does Unicorn break the mould?
For a play built on the foundations of a sex comedy, its ideas about love are far more provocative.
It might leave the pearl-clutching matinee crowd squirming—but that’s exactly the point.
Read the full review at theatregb.com/2025/02/14/r...
Unicorn is, at its core, a play about assumptions
I assumed I knew what this play would be. Just as we assume we understand love, control, and the shape relationships should take.
Bartlett dismantles those certainties, exposing the contradictions, power struggles, and unspoken fears beneath them.
Where the play occasionally falters, it’s lifted by a cast truly at the top of their game.
🔹 Stephen Mangan (Nick) wears the role like a glove.
🔹 Nicola Walker (Polly) is both quietly affecting and deeply funny.
🔹 Erin Doherty (Kate) is the standout. A sledgehammer to the couple’s repression.
The fact that Unicorn is explicitly set in 2025 is no accident. Bartlett presents polyamory as the next great social revolution. A response to monogamy’s failures. A blueprint for love & survival. But does Unicorn interrogate this enough?
Bartlett is a master at taking ideas that could be played for easy laughs and twisting them into something weightier.
Here, the British sex comedy is the Trojan horse; inside is a play about identity and repression. This isn’t just a play about sex. It’s a play about what we use sex to cover up.
Beneath the comedy, Unicorn is a play about:
🌀 Ageing
💭 Fantasy vs Reality
🔪 Repression & Power
🎭 The lies we tell ourselves
And whether we can ever be truly honest—not just with the people we love, but with ourselves.
Nick and Polly, a middle-class couple in a midlife lull, decide to shake things up by inviting a younger third—Polly’s student Kate—into their relationship.
What starts as a brisk, innuendo-laden romp quickly deepens into something unsettling and existential.
I’ll admit it—I had Unicorn pegged all wrong.
Maybe it was the title. Maybe it was the playful branding. Maybe it was the cast of three of Britain’s most recognisable TV actors.
Whatever the reason, I expected something fun, flirty, and maybe a little forgettable. Of course, that was my mistake.
📅 Previews start 6 June 2025. Tickets are on sale now at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Don’t miss this heroic adventure on the West End stage! 🏺⚡
🗞️ For full cast details, and to find out more, read the full story at theatregb.com/2025/01/24/f...
💪Adapted from Disney’s 1997 animated classic, Hercules tells the story of a demigod on a quest to prove himself and reclaim his place on Mount Olympus.
🏺 Featuring legendary songs like “Go the Distance” and “Zero to Hero,” this production arrives fresh from its Hamburg premiere last year.
The iconic Muses are ready to bring the house down, with:
🎤 Candace Furbert as Thalia
🎵 Sharlene Hector as Clio
🎶 Brianna Ogunbawo as Melpomene
🎼 Malinda Parris as Calliope
🎧 Robyn Rose-Li as Terpsichore
🌟 Kamilla Fernandes as Standby Muse
Joining the previously announced Luke Brady as Hercules is:
💃 Mae Ann Jorolan as Meg
🐐 Trevor Dion Nicholas (Hamilton) as Phil
🔥 Stephen Carlile (The Lion King) as Hades
✨ Craig Gallivan and Lee Zarrett as Bob and Charles
🎭 Find out who's going the distance… Disney’s Hercules is gearing up for its West End debut at Theatre Royal Drury Lane this summer, and the full cast has been announced! 🌟⚡
📸 by Matt Crockett
🎟️ Tickets and details at nationaltheatrescotland.com. Don’t miss Brian Cox’s highly anticipated return to the Scottish stage! 🌟
🗞️ Read the full story at theatregb.com/2025/01/24/b...
🧑⚕️ Black Hole Sign by Uma Nada-Rajah, a poignant drama about NHS nurses.
☕️ The Fifth Step by David Ireland: The acclaimed two-hander starring Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman transfers to London’s @sohoplace (May–July).
📖 Also announced for NTOS 2025:
🍪 Through the Shortbread Tin by Martin O’Connor (touring rural venues, April–May).
❣️ Small Acts of Love by Frances Poet, reflecting on the bonds forged in Lockerbie.
🎙️ Graham: "We still live in the long shadow of the 2008 financial crash..so it feels right to be interrogating it artistically. But we hope to do so in a show full of music and story, larger-than-life characters, cheeky humour, and some ghosts from Scotland’s centuries’ long past thrown in as well…”
James Graham's latest drama charts the 2008 financial crash and the RBS demise. His previous plays include Ink, This House and Dear England.
🗓️ Make It Happen premieres at Dundee Rep Theatre in late July, before running at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre as part of the Edinburgh International Festival.
🎭 Brian Cox to star in James Graham’s new satire Make It Happen, as the National Theatre of Scotland announces its full 2025 season 🏴
🎟️ Tickets at sohoplace.org. Priority booking for members is open now; general sale begins 27 Jan. Don’t miss this intense and moving play featuring two of the UK’s finest actors! 🌟
Read more at theatregb.com/2025/01/24/m...
Ireland’s sharp and unflinching writing has been praised for its humour and honesty. Past works include the acclaimed Cyprus Avenue and Ulster American.