Closer, Lyric Hammersmith review ★★★★★

Writer-director Patrick Marber’s play Closer won the Olivier Award for Best New Play after its premiere at the National Theatre in 1997. At the time, its unfiltered deep-dive into the relationships, sex lives and desires of four Londoners, who swap partners and lust after one another, was a racy, boundary-pushing topic to explore on stage.

Twenty-five years later, when the mainstream entertainment highlight of the summer is watching a real-life group of conventionally attractive young adults date and discuss their feelings for one another while holed up in a villa together, Closer no longer seems daring. But the popularity of Love Island just proves that our collective interest in the intimate lives of others remains alive and well, making 2022 as good a time as any for Clare Lizzimore’s revival to hit the Lyric Hammersmith stage.

Sam Troughton and Nina Toussaint-White in Closer at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

It was pitched as a ‘radical’ revival, though, which it isn’t. The script is largely the same and a time capsule back to the stereotypical power dynamics between men and women in the 90s and 00s. So spot-on was it then, that in 2004, Hollywood picked up the story and turned it into a major film starring Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. Today, its scenes of catfishing in online chatrooms, men stating ownership over their women and calling them slags when they don’t comply, and women cat-fighting over their men, are more likely to make you yawn or wrinkle your nose in distaste.

What lures us back in, though, is Lizzimore’s compelling cast. Rising star Jack Farthing (Spencer, The Lost Daughter) delivers a stand-out performance as the erratic, passion-led writer Dan; Ella Hunt (Apocalypse, Dickinson) is appropriately alluring and coquettish as the young stripper Alice, and a strong singer too, between scenes; Nina Toussaint-White (The Bodyguard) is especially naturalistic as the photographer Anna; and Sam Troughton (Chernobyl) proficiently juggles Larry’s professional identity as a doctor and emotional outbursts as a hoodwinked lover.

Ella Hunt and Sam Troughton in Closer at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. Photo: Marc Brenner

Surprisingly, given it’s the vision of Soutra Gilmour, whose eye-catching designs include the haunting, elemental vision of The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Almeida and flamboyant & Juliet on the West End, the set for Closer is bland and uninspiring. The drama unfolds on an unchanging, lust-red floor, populated with a scattering of chairs, benches and desks. A disproportionate swathe of the stage is given to an underused two-man band, who together with their sprawling kit remain on stage for the entire show, despite playing only in brief intervals. Bizarrely, given how little the musicians play, recorded music is also used between scenes.

Also underused is a projection screen at the back of the stage, which briefly displays typed text ahead of the chatroom scene, ripples of water for the aquarium scene, and a brief statement in the final scene, but could have been utilised more to help visualise the play's roaming London settings.

Lizzimore’s is a solid enough revival of Closer, fuelled by a strong cast, but a radical production this is not.

BOOK NOW