From the moment you walk into this performance, you are greeted by anxious luxury. On a sumptuously lit stage, a man sits under a desk reading porn. A schoolgirl crouches under another writing an essay and, between the two, a man is encased in a cellophane box. These, it will be revealed, are the deliciously taboo flavours, the mint chocolate chip, lemon sorbet and raspberry ripple weve all been afraid of.
Joe is gynaecologist who gets distracted by the technical details of women and can only get an erection from buses. His friend Paul, an utterly normal, misogynistic heterosexual male tries to help. But when Paul catches Joe tiptoeing on the line of perversion with his student Robyn, its revealed that Pauls angry desires are in fact the most deviant.
A devised piece exploring the irrationality of sex laws that punish those turned on by inanimate objects and those whose consensual and private activities are labelled extreme pornography, The Absurdity of Vanilla has a worthy message. However, the narrative has a tendency to dissolve into soap boxing and its explicitness is reminiscent of In-Yer-Face theatre. Unfortunately, given the time and presentation of this play, it seems likely only to preach to the converted. Perhaps the same message could have been dressed more subtly, not to censor the content, but to appeal to a wider audience.
