Sex With a Stranger, Trafalgar Studios 2

By Stefan Golaszewski

Sex With A Stranger is the third play from Stefan Golaszewski; writer of BBC 3's hit sitcom Him & Her and erstwhile writer and star of BBC4's critically acclaimed Cowards. Golaszewski's first two one man plays (Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved, and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower) dealt with teenage love and adult demise respectively, here he plugs the gap with a play about the middle part; the confused bit in our twenties when we're a little unsure of whether we're grown ups yet.

Adam (Russell Tovey) snubs his girlfriend Ruth (Naomi Sheldon), and leaves her at home while he goes out for a mate's birthday. Later that evening he picks up Grace (Jaime Winstone) at a club and gets the nightbus back to hers. Bleak, funny and excruciatingly accurate Golaszewski's play locates the place where three lives - with all that has gone before, and all is yet to happen - entwine in a cheerless morass of uncertainly, boredom, loneliness and empty lust.

Both pieces contain a cruel twist, or rather a malign stroke of fate, that it would be a crime to give away but which add some exceedingly dark shadows, and both are superb on the subject of sex – frank, even graphic, but full of truth, tenderness and delight.

*****
The Telegraph (On The Stefan Golaszewski Plays)

Russell Tovey, well known for his appearances in Being Human (BBC3) and more recently Him & Her (BBC3), makes a welcome return to the London stage in his first piece of theatre for three years. Jaime Winstone has starred in various British films including Made in Dagenham, Kidulthood and Donkey Punch. Her theatre work includes The Fastest Clock in the Universe (Hampstead Theatre/Leicester Curve) where her performance won rave reviews. Since graduating in 2010 Naomi Sheldon has worked with some exemplary theatre practitioners before this, her West End debut. Multi award-winning director Phillip Breen is reunited with Golaszewski having directed The Stefan Golaszewski Plays initially at the Edinburgh Fringe, and latterly at the Bush Theatre. More recently he has directed the Fringe First Award-winning Party, by Tom Basden, the Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning Humphrey Ker and a revival of Peter Nichols' A Day in The Death of Joe Egg (Citizens Theatre Company, Glasgow). Sex With A Stranger is produced by The Invisible Dot Ltd.