Sex With A Stranger is the third play from Stefan Golaszewski; writer of BBC 3's hit sitcom Him & Her and erstwhile writer and star of BBC4's critically acclaimed Cowards. Golaszewski's first two one man plays (Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved, and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower) dealt with teenage love and adult demise respectively, here he plugs the gap with a play about the middle part; the confused bit in our twenties when we're a little unsure of whether we're grown ups yet.
Adam (Russell Tovey) snubs his girlfriend Ruth (Naomi Sheldon), and leaves her at home while he goes out for a mate's birthday. Later that evening he picks up Grace (Jaime Winstone) at a club and gets the nightbus back to hers. Bleak, funny and excruciatingly accurate Golaszewski's play locates the place where three lives - with all that has gone before, and all is yet to happen - entwine in a cheerless morass of uncertainly, boredom, loneliness and empty lust.
Both pieces contain a cruel twist, or rather a malign stroke of fate, that it would be a crime to give away but which add some exceedingly dark shadows, and both are superb on the subject of sex – frank, even graphic, but full of truth, tenderness and delight.
