Linck & Mülhahn

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The title of Ruby Thomas’s play suggests some kind of cringey comedy double act, but the reality is weightier, stranger and sexier than that. Scene changes on Simon Wells’ stark, revolving set – of a staircase, a landing and a wall – are accompanied by jarring bursts of rock music including The Sex Pistols and The Clash. A handful of similes – such as one comparison to bubbles, of all things – don’t come across as lyrical as Thomas might have intended, but more awkward and incongruous.

As they begin to forge a relationship that breaks boundaries and rejects the rigid rules of their society, they find themselves confronted by a world determined to tear them apart. At one point, Linck, working as a cloth maker, picks up a scrap of shoddy fabric and says: “One loose thread and the whole thing unravels. When they were prosecuted for sodomy in 1721, Mülhahn claimed she’d been tricked by Linck and escaped with a three-year sentence. Maggie Bain ( Man to Man, Henry V) stars as Anastasius Linck, alongside Helena Wilson ( Jack Absolute Flies Again, The Lady from the Sea) as Catharina Mülhahn. An audio described performance will take place on 25 February, with a captioned showing on 28 February.These meagre but glinting spokes form the basis of Ruby Thomas's freewheeling reconstruction, which casts Anastasius not as a lesbian but as neither woman nor man. At times, it’s ploddingly paced, with Thomas trying to pack too many ideas into a narrative that is at its best when it’s tightly focused on the central characters’ passionate relationship. Take, for instance, Lucy Black’s permanently aghast Mother, who is brilliantly funny in her fragility and her shock at even the slightest deviation from the norm.

Maggie Bain ( Man to Man, Wales Millennium Centre; Henry V, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre) plays the role of Anastasius Linck with Helena Wilson ( Jack Absolute Flies Again, National Theatre; The Lady from the Sea, Donmar) playing the role of Catharina Mülhahn and Lucy Black ( The Durrells, ITV; The Haystack, Hampstead Theatre) playing Mother. But the whole thing is too gimmicky and too self-conscious in its juxtaposition of different eras to really work. Wilson’s sparky, self-deprecating Mülhahn completes the two-hander, whose enthusiastic embrace of the philosophies of love is endearing, and echoed with tragic reflection from Mülhahn’s older self (Marty Cruikshank). Unlike Hampstead theatre, which, stripped of its grant last year, has just put on the most exhilarating play I’ve seen there for ages.

Ruby Thomas has unearthed an altogether sadder story from early 18th-century Prussia, of a married couple who were tried for sodomy after it was discovered that the husband had been born female.

The cast also include Lucy Black (The Durrells, The Haystack), as Mother, plus Daniel Abbott, David Carr, Marty Cruickshank, Kammy Darweish, Qasim Mahmood, Leigh Quinn and Timothy Speyer. It’s a sprawling tragi-comic love story that explores contemporary issues around sex, gender and the violent oppression of people whose lives do not conform to narrow societal expectations. Fist-clenching activists may be happy enough; the rest of us are left starved of subtlety and insight. If you missed I, Joan at the Globe last year, then Hampstead Theatre’s Linck and Mülhahn tries to emulate its daring and ambitious nature, but only somewhat successfully. Disclaimer: I was invited to watch ‘Linck and Mülhahn’ for free in exchange for a review of the performance as a member of the press.It is as much a compliment (in terms of it being like Charlie Josephine’s phenomenal production) as it is a criticism (regarding its lacking uniqueness).