The first reviews are in for Tell Me Straight / Aggy, Paul Bradshaw’s double bill of queer London plays, now running at the King’s Head Theatre in Islington after a run at the Park Theatre in March. In Tell Me Straight Bradshaw himself plays Him, a man whose hook-ups all swear they are straight, with Elliott Rogers taking on the men in his life; in Aggy, Matthew Jordan and Jean-Luke Worrell play a couple whose new home together is tested when one of them reinvents himself to get ahead in the art world. Bradshaw co-directs with Imogen Frances. The critics like both halves and are especially taken with the look of the second, though not all of them think the writing pushes as hard as it could.
3.9 / 5 from 4 criticsThe verdict: five reviews in so far, all from the online and independent press — one four-and-a-half-star notice, two at four stars, one at three, and British Theatre Guide, which does not give ratings. Among the four that score it, the average is 3.9 out of 5. They agree that the two plays sit well together, and most single out the design of Aggy, with its showroom flat and walls that turn into social media feeds. Where they part company is on the writing: Flicker Magazine thinks Aggy the sharper and braver of the pair, while A Young(ish) Perspective finds both plays holding back from the story underneath.
What are critics saying about Tell Me Straight / Aggy?
Flicker Magazine
“When love becomes part of the performance”
Reviewer: Lex Melony
Lex Melony reviews Aggy, the second half of the bill, and finds it very funny before it turns cruel, with Damien Stanton’s carefully styled apartment and Matt Powell’s video design making sure the couple’s flat never feels private.
“Jean-Luke Worrell gives the quietest and strongest performance of the night, and he has the best scene.”
Melony praises Matthew Jordan for letting the fear show beneath a selfish man, and her only complaint is an ending that crowds its biggest moments together. She rates it among the handsomest small-scale shows in London this year, and a bolder play than Tell Me Straight.
Pink Prince Theatre
“A carousel of comedic chaos”
Reviewer: Neill Kovacic-Clarke
Neill Kovacic-Clarke reviewed the two plays separately and gave each four stars. On Tell Me Straight he admires a semi-autobiographical script that finds real hurt underneath the jokes about dating apps, and calls Elliott Rogers’s quick-change multi-rolling a masterclass.
“…a hilarious, biting, and delightfully messy slice of queer life…”
His second review, of Aggy, values its frankness about race, privilege and the personas people build online, with Jordan and Worrell at its centre, and wishes only that the hour-long play gave its characters more time.
Read Neill Kovacic-Clarke’s full review at Pink Prince Theatre
North West End
Reviewer: Naina Sidhu
Naina Sidhu enjoys Tell Me Straight as a confessional that is both funny and exposed, with Cheng Keng’s lighting giving each encounter its own space and the fourth wall broken at well-chosen moments.
“Aggy is an astounding feat, exploring what success can look like in the contemporary London art-scene…”
She finds the second play’s rows over microaggressions deliberately uncomfortable to sit through, and singles out the colourful set and the Instagram reels projected around it, which move the story on rather than feeling like a gimmick.
A Young(ish) Perspective
“Paul Bradshaw’s presentations of contemporary gay life contain glimmering moments which indicate a more cutting story underneath.”
The most reserved of the five, this review finds charm and humour in Bradshaw’s own performance as Him but feels that both the acting and the writing hold something back, and that Him’s friend, heard only on voicemail, is left underused.
“Aggy poses an interesting provocation of the use of identity politics for personal gain.”
That sharper edge shows what the writing can do, it argues, but too much of the evening stays cautious, and the on-stage social media lifts the audience out of the play as often as it serves it.
British Theatre Guide
Reviewer: Rebecca Clifton
Rebecca Clifton thinks the plays make a good pairing, different in tone but sharing a concern with identity and self-expression, and credits Bradshaw and Frances with handling two quite different styles.
“Bradshaw has done a fantastic job at balancing comedy and drama in these two plays.”
She praises Rogers for switching between Him’s lovers with ease and Worrell for the unease he brings to Mahlik, though she finds Bradshaw’s flirting overplayed, and she ends on the question both plays leave open: whether a label brings shame or freedom.
Production photographs by Zoë Birkbeck.
For more of the week’s openings, the critics have also had their say on Ilford Boy at the Donmar Warehouse and Martin Guerre at the Old Vic.
Tell Me Straight / Aggy runs at the King’s Head Theatre until 14 November 2026.
For more information, visit the official website.
