A sex farce reminiscent of Alan Clark’s diaries: Phaedra, at the Lyttelton Theatre, reviewed

Simon Stone claims that his new comedy, Phaedra, draws on the work of Euripides, Seneca and Racine. In fact, the porn-mag narrative resembles a passage in Alan Clark’s diaries where the priapic scribbler seduces a mother and daughter in rapid succession. That’s what happens to Sofiane, a homeless Moroccan lecher, aged 41, who has the looks of George Best and the sexy drawl of a Riviera gigolo. He befriends Helen, a senior Labour MP, who shares her picture-perfect London home with her two brattish children and her high-flying husband Hugo, who speaks 15 languages.

Helen appears to be starved of sex and male attention, which seems rather improbable for a Westminster insider. She instantly falls for the penniless Sofiane and they race off together to his low-rent love nest on the 14th floor of a partially built tower block in Birmingham. After their first night of passion, she decides to chuck Hugo and move into Sofiane’s high-rise squat.