Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: James Devlin, Stuart Crowther, Andie Egan.

Relationships are complicated, they can blow your mind or they suck the life out of you but what happens when one of the pair has a tendency to kiss someone else just to punish the other, the party is some relationships seems to survive, in others you wonder what they are actually both after.

As part of Liverpool’s Grin Theatre’s Queertet 2014, John Maines’ A Party of Three takes a look at the relationship between two gay men, Phil and Pete and what happens when distractions come between them. Phil’s distractions, apart from his almost avarice like grip on money and power, is the thrill of the chase, something he had promised was behind him, until he confesses of a mistake with a much younger man in a toilet in London and in return Pete meets up with the man who first acknowledged his homosexuality.

Regardless of whether the relationship is straight or gay, it is easy to see why people get confused in the heat of the moment, humanity is after all nothing but chaotic, beautiful but stunningly complicated. John Maines’ script alludes to this well and with the creatively superb Natalie Kennedy at the directing helm and with very good performances by James Devlin and Andie Egan, with a cracking display by Stuart Crowther as the ultimately emotionally torn Pete, A Party of Three shows just how complicated life can be.

Whilst two people can show a united front, the appearance of a third person, even just hinted at, can cause a strain. Not everything is a celebration; two is more than enough for merrymaking and even when the proposal of marriage is asked, it seems to spell the end of a certain part of their relationship.

A Party of Three is a very good piece in which Natalie Kennedy and John Maines should be proud of bringing to the fore.

Ian D. Hall