Review: Jock Night at Hope Mill Theatre is ‘a provocative dive into queer hedonism’

This play is not for the prudish, faint-hearted or those with body image issues.

It’s a regular weekend for characters Ben, Russell and Kam as the audience joins them and their latest conquest AJ at a drug fuelled orgy in a flat in central Manchester.

This bedroom is the conduit through which we see the dramas of everyday life (as the characters know it at least) play out in Jock Night, a production which places issues of drug use, friendship and loneliness as centrally as it does the cast’s abs.\

Jock Night at Hope Mill Theatre

In the beginning a casual observer may mistake Jock Night for being just about abs (and pecks and buttocks) but the play has a heart and soul, like its characters.

There’s Ben the group Daddy and Victoria Wood fanatic, Kam the acerbic party animal and Russel the himbo-with-a-heart who are joined by doe-eyed, small town newcomer AJ and dark-sided porn actor Simon aka Hunter.

This friendship group (even the script interrogates if this would be the correct way of describing them) provides the audience with an insight into a world which the average person may think is seedy, but actually operates along its own rules of love, care, sex positivity and alarms set for perfectly timed doses of party drugs.

Lost in a world of endless pleasure

All the characters seem to be searching for something but have got lost in a world of endless pleasure, unsure if that’s what they were looking for all along.

Generally speaking, the performances are strong with every cast member getting the chance to show off both their comedic timing and serious emotional acting chops.

However, Eddie Ahrens stands out as the chaotic hedonist who displays differing levels of agency over his path to destruction, sometimes willingly enjoying it and other times painfully ignorant of his own vulnerability.

David Paisley likewise shines as Ben, the linchpin of the group who has found himself in a fatherly role despite having lacked such a figure of his own and desperately needing guidance and love himself.

James Colebrook as Russ

James Colebrook as Russ also manages to steal scenes both in the first act as a comic foil and in the latter by providing unexpected heartfelt insight, as does youngster Gabriel Clark as AJ with a meditation on the contemporary need for Pride.

Despite the emotive performances, the play lacked anything in the way of a real plot, at times feeling like loosely drawn together tableaux of sex and drugs with moralising monologues delivered by men in jockstraps thrown in for good measure.

There were also bizarre tonal shifts, and while I appreciate bringing levity to the dark and serious, some of these moments were jarring.

The ending was also really disappointing. No spoilers, but for a play which seems to want to be a contemporary update on the gay male narrative, the final big plot point felt seriously dated.

It also muddied the water on the message overall, which by the end I felt was ambiguous and unsatisfactory.

A clear moral isn’t always a prerequisite but for a play which positions itself as a 21st century queer morality tale having no satisfactory resolution seems odd.

But maybe this is the point. Not everything is straight forward in life and gay liberation isn’t complete, so Jock Night’s ending isn’t either. Thankfully, I’m not prudish or faint-hearted (body issues remain to be seen) and this is overall an enjoyable and fun watch.

There are jokes, bare flesh, state of the nation lectures and meditations on the cyclical nature of addiction.

Jock Night is inherently provocative but it’s also thought provoking.

It all leaves the audience asking the question, sure (for gay men at least) things are better than in the past, but does that mean that we’re ok?

Tickets for Jock Night at Hope Mill

Jock Night is on at Hope Mill Theatre from 20th of May 2025 to 31st of May 2025

You can get tickets to see Jock Night at Hope Mill by clicking here