Paldem review – Industry's David Jonsson brings the sexual tension in OnlyFans drama

The Guardian

2 days ago

Kevin and Megan are friends who reap the benefits when a one-night stand is accidentally caught on camera. It captures them at it and she (Natasha Cowley) likes the outcome. 'We're hot,' she says to him (Michael Workeye), watching back the footage. So their pornographic OnlyFans account is born, providing homemade sex videos and an income stream.
Written by David Jonsson, an actor and Bafta Rising Star who has appeared in Industry and Rye Lane, this debut is one of the most anticipated offerings of the fringe.
Directed by Zi Alikhan, who has also worked on Industry, it is an adventurous setup but its central sexual drama does not quite come off. Part of the problem is that it is handled too gingerly rather than fully penetrated, as it were. So it is too restrained, its drama and ideas not fully realised.
The dialogue is vibrant but unnatural as the couple repartee in witty one-liners. There are growing tensions in their relationship but you do not access its emotional complexity – need, desire, resentment, maybe even love.
There is not enough context either and too much is left unspoken: Kevin is a photographer but beyond that we learn little about him, and even less about Megan. The OnlyFans storyline in itself has potential but goes nowhere.
The set looks like a living room cum photographic studio, with a screen on which videoed images are projected. There is a strange kind of sterility when the sex scenes are enacted. It is maybe an encapsulation of the awkwardness of homemade pornography. Still, we are told that this couple has great sex yet there are few fireworks between them.
Things become more amusing when another couple joins the fray but this also flips the tone into satire, so it seems. There are a few other illuminating glimmers: Kevin says he enjoys watching Megan watching him enjoying himself on screen ('circles of desire'). It is a good observation.
But not enough is carried through. Racial tensions between the couple come flooding in at the end, too late and truncated. There is great potential here nonetheless. If this play could find a better focus, it might just have something.
At Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 25 August
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