Review: THE VIRGINS, Soho Theatre

Featuring two of the most awkward sex scenes you'll ever see, this acerbic comedy is a merciless meditation on teenage fumblings.

While those in The Virgins have one thing uppermost in their minds — be it the anticipation of the act, doing it or how to even talk to the opposite sex — there is no shortage of observations on how socially we have evolved our view of conjugal matters. Written by Miriam Battye (Strategic Love Play, Succession), this is a play that shreds the myths of coming-of-age through a razor-sharp script and bravura acting. 

At its heart, Battye’s message revolves around lusty desire and youthful confusion underpinned by the constant fear of Doing It Wrong. It captures what it feels like to be sixteen, uncertain, bombarded by porn tropes and mixed messages, and obsessed with a question most adults pretend they’ve long figured out: what is sex all about anyway? 

Her script is sharp enough to slice through expectations almost immediately and keep us utterly engrossed. The rat-a-tat-tat dialogue skips, stutters, and shouts with the intricacy of a particularly fractious group chat. She isn’t afraid to turn shock value into something far deeper: a grudging attempt at mutual masturbation in the bathroom and a closing sexual encounter are agonising litanies written in eye rolls, grimaces and regretful thousand-yard stares. 

There is an explicit echo here of the much-acclaimed Strategic Love Play, another Battye piece that dissected the transactional nature of modern romance with wry precision. But whereas that work sat us across the table in a bar and allowed us to listen in on the terrifying inner thoughts of two strangers on a date, The Virgins drops us smack into the chaotic, hormonal melee of teenage preparation for a big night out. 

The expansive set design from Rosie Elnile allows us to simultaneously view Chloe, Jess, Phoebe and Anya as they prepare in the bathroom to go “out-out” and pull some local lads as, on the opposite side of the stage, Chloe’s brother Joel and his taciturn mate Mel hang out in the living room. While the girls apply make-up, put on their outfits and practice strengthening their gag reflex with the aid of a toothbrush, the guys are silently engrossed in endless rounds of Mortal Kombat. 

The cast deliver this with bracing clarity. Zoë Armer’s Anya is the “coolest, hottest, loudest girl” from the year above. In a role that could so easily become caricature, Armer adds real depth as her knowingness reveals a backstory of bruised experience. Anushka Chakravarti’s Chloe bounces between mock confidence and naked fear like a pinball, while Molly Hewitt-Richards’ Phoebe turns every small gesture into comic gold.

Ella Bruccoleri’s Jess (in a role a world away from Call The Midwife’s Sister Frances) is the sensible counterweight, anchoring the girl ensemble with an offhand gravitas. On the boys’ side, Alec Boaden brings a wounded romanticism to Mel and Ragevan Vasan’s Joel wears his anxieties in every twitch and half-sentence. 

As with Strategic Love Play, there is no filter here when it comes to the conversations. The melodramatic music reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood played at the start is in stark contrast to the no-holds-barred information exchange going on by the WC. One girl asks, “Do we have to make the noises?” in a line that both evaporates the mystery and lays bare adolescent panic. It’s funny because it’s painfully true, and it’s true because it’s painfully funny. 

Director Jaz Woodcock-Stewart orchestrates the ensemble with guts and finesse. The transitions between laugh-out-loud banter and sudden emotional weight are handled expertly. The direction never lets the audience forget they’re watching something immediate and alive as we are thrown back and forth between the utterly hilarious and genuinely discomforting. 

There may be shared DNA between The Inbetweeners and The Virgins in the exploration of early yearnings and schoolkid bantering but, while the TV series was more about juvenile banter and even more juvenile japes, this is an intelligent foray into a world where sexual education is more likely to come from Pornhub than the classroom and the rulebook compiled from ChatGPT and overhead bathroom conversations.

The Virgins continues at Soho Theatre until 7 March

Photo credit: Camilla Greenwell