COCK by Mike Bartlett

 

Cock by Mike Bartlett.

Directed by Zachary  Bridgman. Assistant director Anna Hemming. Produced by Chris Baldock. Lighting design Rhiley Winnett and Emma Hemming. Set concept, design and realization Chris Baldock. Stage Manager and lighting and sound Anna Hemming. Costumes Cast. Props Chris Baldock and Cast. Intimacy Coordination Steph Evans. Publicity and Photography Chris Baldock with Zac Bridgman. Mockingbird Studio Theatre. A Mockingbird Too Production. Belconnen Arts Centre. July 1-4 2026.

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

 

Mockingbird Theatre Company’s Artistic Director, Chris Baldock, has introduced Mockingbird Too as a subsidiary arm of his main programme. He has resisted inviting critics, so I decided to invite myself to see Mike Bartlett’s Olivier Award winning play Cock, directed by Zachary Bridgman and featuring Adelaide Hayes as W, James Phillips as John, Eli Narev as M and Paul G. Hutchison as F. There is nothing second tier about Bridgman’s production or the cast’s performances. They are assisted by playwright Mike Bartlett’s writing, funny and uncomfortable, entertaining and confronting, barbed and brutal, honest and revealing, stripping back the façade to expose the raw rash of insecurity and uncertainty about love, sexuality and identity. For ninety minutes Bartlett catapults us through the turbulent relationship of John ( Phillips) and his lover M (Narev), the crisis in identity, allegiance and fidelity when James meets and has sex with W ( Hayes). It all comes to a head when Eli invites W to dinner and asks his father F (Hutchison) to join them. Assailed on all sides, the confused and impotent John is finally compelled to make a decision and we are left wondering whether John has chosen in concert with his true feelings and sense of self. Or is he left still with the most bewildering conundrum of them all, “Who am I?”

Eli Narev as M. James Phillips as John. Adelaide Hayes as W

 

Director Bridgman has set the play in a boxing ring, a place where the uppercut of Bartlett’s language, the left hook jab of verbal assault and the bob and weave of ducking punches can ultimately lead to a blow by blow collapse to the canvas. We sit as spectators to the fight, witnesses to the complicated gay love of John and M, the sexual awakening of heterosexual love with W and the biased refereeing of F.  When the bell sounds the final bout the call leaves John a bruised and battered victim of the fight, up against the ropes with no escape in a contest that has no winner and three losers. Bartlett’s Cock pulls no punches when it comes to boxing below the belt to win the fight and gain the trophy. If only John knew which or who was the trophy.

Bridgman’s stylized direction within the ropes makes the most of the sparring, avoiding the realism of props and settings apart from four stools in the combatants’ corners and a water bottle for each boxer. Each round concludes with the sounding of the bell until John is lef t isolated and alone in his confusion. Bartlett’s language needs no graphic action to arouse the emotions. Bridgman directs with the evocative power of suggestiveness, allowing us to imagine, to judge or to envision. Cock is an actor’s playground and Bridgman’s cast turn in first grade performances.

As the only named character in the play, Phillips turns in a terrific performance, a tortuous struggle to discover his true self and come to terms with his confused bisexuality. His character is the cog in a chain of conflicting demands and emotions, and Phillips turns in a first-rate performance as Bartlett’s psychological punching bag. As John’s gay lover, Narev is thoroughly convincing, intensely faithful and dependent on John’s love for his own sense of self. Narev lends the character a searing vulnerability and a desperate need for love from the bewildered John. Hayes’ W is the Siren who distorts John’s reality in his mind. Her motive is simple when after a broken relationship, she tells John “I think you’re the one”. Every character has something to lose in this triangular combat with one’s own needs and desires. Bartlett’s tone shifts with the appearance in the final round of M’s father, F. Hutchison gives a firmly blinkered performance of a father who has accepted his son’s sexuality and refuses to have th at acceptance threatened by W’s intervention in John’s allegiance to the seven year relationship with M. The text becomes more dogmatic and didactic, espousing cliché. The volatility in the earlier rounds becomes more laboured during the dinner scene as the characters struggle to come to terms with their perspective. It is a struggle that leads to a resolution that offers no solution.

Adelaide Hayes as W. Paul G. Hutchison as F in Cock 

 

Bridgman’s production offers a fascinating insight into a vulnerability that is forever lurking until it is compelled to leap into the ring and punch its way to the final sound of the bell, whatever that may prove to be. Mockingbird Too’s Cock will have you glued to your seats in anticipation of the outcome. It only runs until the 12^th. If you miss it, and even if you don’t, see Bartlett’s companion piece Bull presented by Mockingbird Too from July 15^th. If Cock is anything to go by this too will be a companion piece not to be missed.