Sad, blinkered and incoherent: Arcola’s The Misandrist reviewed

A new play, The Misandrist, looks at modern dating habits. Rachel is a smart, self-confident woman whose partner is a timid desperado named Nick. Both accept that Rachel must make all the important decisions in their lives and she orders Nick to submit to ‘pegging’. After some perfunctory resistance, Nick obeys. ‘Lube me up,’ he cries and she plunges a pink truncheon deep into his digestive tract. Afterwards he claims that the experience was so uplifting that even his ancestors enjoyed a taste of bliss from beyond the grave.

Lisa Carroll’s ironic and frivolous comedy is fun to watch. The characters are enjoyable and the lightweight, throwaway acting meets the script’s requirements. Act Two departs from the theme of sex and loses focus as Nick and Rachel both pursue stand-up careers. And the arrival of a drunken Irish relative sours the play and kills off the laughs.

The highlight of the script is a three-minute rant by Rachel about men’s unpleasantness towards females. ‘I hate men who…’ says Rachel repeatedly as she enumerates numerous misogynistic crimes. ‘I hate men who stone women to death’ is a view shared by everyone but Rachel implies that most men are capable of murdering a female. Her hate list includes the popular but mistaken belief that men all want teenage girlfriends. Rachel also loathes men ‘who don’t make the first move’. So what’s her real complaint? It’s acceptable to dislike pervy or violent men but ‘hating’ courteous, gentlemanly characters who decline to pester women for sex seems confused and barmy.

The only reliable component of Rachel’s diatribe is the opening phrase, ‘I hate…’. And the real object of her revulsion is not male behaviour but the fabric of life itself which has convinced her that every unwelcome experience is a personal injury contrived by the other half of the human race.