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# REVIEW: More Sex Please, We’re Desperate @The Marlborough Theatre
- URL: https://www.scenemag.co.uk/review-more-sex-please-were-desperate-the-marlborough-theatre/
- Published: 2018-10-13T07:39:47.000Z
- Updated: 2018-10-13T08:28:29.000Z
- Description: There is a moment in this performance where its creator directly asks the audience “who here believes they had a good sex education”? The silence does not suggest an unwillingness to participate but in a brief moment for sixty people upstairs at The Marlborough, we collectively make a damning observ
- Author: Craig Hanlon-Smith

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## More Sex Please, We’re Desperate – Harry Clayton-Wright’s Sex Education at The Marlborough Theatre.

**THERE is a moment** in this performance where its creator directly asks the audience *“who here believes they had a good sex education”?* The silence does not suggest an unwillingness to participate but in a brief moment for sixty people upstairs at The Marlborough, we collectively make a damning observation of both our education system and ancient social mantra *“no sex please we’re British”.* It is quite a statement.

There is sex a plenty in Harry Clayton-Wright’s self penned *‘Sex Education’* but to highlight any explicit sexual content, namely in the accompanying filmed sequences, would be to do this theatrical auteur and his allegory to life a terrible injustice. In a piece that at times affectionately and refreshingly feels unpolished, Clayton-Wright himself suggests the work is still in development, we are reminded of the importance of theatre to challenge, question, move and gloriously entertain.

In *‘Sex Education’* we are treated to a soft symphony of part narration, dance, lip-sync, pornography, drag and cucumber sandwich it is at times moving but largely joyous. The explicit content is shared in such a way that it is both wryly amusing and at times hilarious, but what drives this piece is a central narrative of Clayton-Wright interviewing his mother. It is warm, kind, normal.

We learn deeply personal and painful details of Momma Harry’s teenage challenges and dysfunctional marriage, but shared and punctuated in such a way with Clayton-Wright’s lightness of touch, that we the third member of his family are never sad. Even his tale of an unwanted sexual experience although clearly important, is framed as a moment to brake (not break) rather than a darkness that drives.

Guessing at Harry’s age I would imagine he was a school boy throughout the constricting Thatcherite Section 28\. That he inhabits a lustful yet kind sexual freedom openly shared with both his mother and the world is not a scathing attack on such inhibitive legislation but a wafting away of oppression as if to say *“you didn’t matter anyway”*. It’s genius and uplifting.

Whatever this inspired theatre maker does next will be a must see. There is a revolutionary in our midst and his name is Harry.

Review by Craig Hanlon-Smith [@Craigscontinuum](https://twitter.com/craigscontinuum?lang=en&ref=scenemag.co.uk)