Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Opening on the eve of Valentine’s Day, Mike Bartlett’s Unicorn poses a pertinent question. When the flames of passion are dying in a relationship, what can you do to rekindle the fire? Do you try a course of couples therapy or, as in the case of Polly (Nicola Walker) and Nick (Stephen Mangan), go in search of a “unicorn”, someone willing to spice up your life by creating a sexual and romantic “throuple”?It’s clearly a disastrous idea. Or, actually, is it? The play opens with Polly, poet and university tutor with a husband and two school-age children, going for a drink with her 28-year-old student, Kate (Erin Doherty, the young Princess Anne in Netflix’s The Crown). The two are attracted to each other, but Polly struggles to explain why she’s there; Kate cuts to the chase: “People simply want to fuck.” The play’s engine is set in motion. Polly thinks she’s all in but can she persuade her husband to make this ménage-à-trois work?Unicorn picks up on, and takes a step further, a theme Bartlett explored in his 2009 play Cock, about a man trying to decide between a male and a female lover. Walker and Mangan similarly have form as a married couple in trouble, having starred together in Abi Morgan’s TV drama The Split. Their rapport, with Walker as the emotional poet and Mangan the buttoned-up surgeon, is effortlessly natural, with Mangan’s hangdog affect and rigid bearing the perfect foil for Walker’s physical energy, expressive features and overflow of language.“We’re a bit of a cliché,” says Polly at one point, and, yes, in many ways, Walker and Mangan aren’t having to embody a particularly new situation as a middle-aged couple falling apart; though as their relationship with Kate deepens, that changes. As to Kate, I can’t decide whether director James Macdonald sells her short with her deadpan, almost robotic delivery of her political opinions and sexual fantasies, or captures the undoubting, speak-it-like-it-is confidence of the next generation. Bartlett writes bitter well — bitterly funny even better. There are some great one-liners and a standout riff by Walker about the joys of “waiting” in the days before mobile phones. In a play where there’s a lot of explicit language and endless discussion about whether or not to jump into bed, there’s ironically (and perhaps thankfully) very little actual action. Theatrical Viagra this is not. Unicorn may speak to you differently depending on your generation — in terms of how uncomfortable it makes you feel, and whether you see the ending as a vision of hope or an icky Gen-Z fever dream of the family of the future.★★★☆☆To April 26, thegarricktheatre.co.uk
