Review: FOAM, Finborough Theatre

I can’t say I ever thought I’d see a play about a gay neo-Nazi for the simple reason that I hadn’t thought there were any. I mean it’s an oxymoron isn’t it? But that’s the exact conundrum that Harry McDonald’s Foam tries to disentangle.

At the risk of sounding glib, I’m sure men like this existed. It’s just too difficult to believe when Nicky, the queer skinhead whom the play orbits, is unrelentingly stupid. His two brain cells work overtime working out if he wants to fight, flirt or fuck his way through a series of bathroom encounters over two decades. Jake Richards’ Nicky lumbers from one high octane lust-fuelled frenzy to self-hating violence in a dizzying flurry of swearing and clenched fists.

We meet Nicky at fifteen in a dream-like encounter with queer Oswald Mosley, black turtleneck and all. It could be a playful inversion of ultra-right wing ideology, but here it is a concrete attempt to slice into the cross section that is Nicky’s twisted psyche.

Each encounter in Matthew Iliffe’s production toys with the dimensions of image: do the Doc Martens boots that he proudly stomps around in make the skinhead or does the skinhead make the Docs? One vignette sees photographer capture Nicky arm out in a Hitler salute and grimly sadistic smile etched across his face. It’s just for the clandestine laughs right? A later scene pushes the idea further: Nicky plays a skinhead in a gay porno, only for him to awkwardly mangle his lines and fail to maintain an erection.

There are some ambitious ideas here. Nicky lurches towards lust but is torn the other way by self-hatred. But we don’t get a clear insight into either of the polarising forces. A few soundbites about England aren’t enough to believe that he could be so hateful and without that psychological anchor nothing he does conjures tragic weight.

It’s unaided by how utterly repulsive Nicky is. A bruising bully, even when dying of AIDS in the final scene. Do we really want to look inside the mind of someone so repugnant? His physical decline is neither tragic nor a provocation to sympathise with someone so nasty. Even whilst physically incapacitated he shows no remorse. If Nicky really is a Gordian knot of a character, why bother trying to untangle him?

Nitin Parmar’s set is gorgeously claustrophobic. The white tiled grime of a public toilet is so detailed you’ll want to wash your hands just by looking at it. The supporting cast are strong, slinking in and out of scenes convincingly bewildered, scared of, and as fascinated by Nicky as the audience.

Foam plays at Finborough theatre until 13 April

Photo Credit: Craig Fuller

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