How are gay men living in 2016? That’s the hugely wide-ranging question playwright Jake Brunger was asked to tackle and it has turned into Four Play, a new work that makes its debut in Wandsworth on February 16.

The writer of the critically-acclaimed Adrian Mole the Musical was commissioned by Old Vic New Voices and the TS Eliot estate to write a ‘state of the nation gay play’.

Coming out and aids have been tackled by previous generations of playwrights and perhaps another writer may have written about Grindr or Chemsex, Jake took a more nuanced look.

He said: “What I wanted to write was a non-gay gay play and living in London I do feel we are in a relatively privileged position.

“You can live in London and be gay and it not be a thing. I suppose this is one of the first plays where you can look at what happens when it is no longer an issue – what are the issues left behind for gay men?

“What I didn’t want to do was write a Grindr play. Grindr is kind of the public face of gay relationships and gay fidelity.

“It is referenced in the play but it is not central to the storyline in any way at all because actually there are thousands of normal, middle-class, hetero-aspirational people who want everyone else does.

“They want to settle down, they want to adopt children and live as a nuclear family. What I didn’t want to do is look into this going out culture and this club culture.”

Read more: 

With Four Play, what Jake did do was explore something he sees as more fundamental to a lot of gay relationships, but also highly relevant to heterosexual couplings: fidelity.

His characters Rafe and Pete have hit a rut after seven and a half happy years together and when they proposition mutual friend Michael – who has a partner of his own – things quickly spiral out of control.

Jake said: “I thought the one thing that is stopping our generation getting to marriage and adoption is actually commitment and fidelity within relationships in the first place.

“It was whilst writing that actually I realise that crosses sexuality into heterosexuality as well.

“I think our generation is in crisis really when it comes to committing to each other.

“That comes from things like dating apps and especially living in a city like London where if you go on a bad date you can go on another one tomorrow, or in half an hour.

“We have got this culture that turns over so quickly. My play is quite specifically about two different relationships and when you are questioning within those relationships ‘is this meant to be?’, ‘is this the one?’ and ‘how do you know?’”

It is a testament to Jakes writing that an early developmental performance of Four Play saw big name actors Jeremy Irvine (War Horse, The Woman in Black: Angel of Death) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones’s Robb Stark) take part.

For its full debut, the play is coming to Battersea’s Theatre503. It follows another exciting piece that deals with sex, Milly Thomas’s Clickbait.

Jake is thrilled to be returning to the theatre. He said: “I feel like Theatre503 is the theatre equivalent of Channel 4.

“When you switch on Channel 4 at 10pm on any evening you don’t know whether you are going to be getting Homeland or This is England or a comedy like Catastrophe. Their programming is so diverse but what remains consistent is the quality.

“You might be going to see a play about Rwandan genocide or a comedy about transgender people but you know the writing is going to be of a calibre and a quality, the performances are going to be excellent. It is about how they curate that season.”

Four Play is at Theatre503, Battersea, from February 16 to March 12. Tickets cost £15, £12 or pay what you can on Sundays. Go to theatre503.com

Like our Vibe page on Facebook for entertainment news, interviews, reviews and features from across south London.