The Last Incel review – the hate, horror and comedy that lurk online

Pleasance theatre, London
Jamie Sykes' queasily entertaining play dramatises the contemptible views found in incel' forums - but also elicits sympathy for its characters, whose loathing is directed inwards as well as out

Three men are gathered in an online forum to speak of women as bitches and Beckys". These are incels", who boast a coded vocabulary of hate and valorise male celibacy. That is, until a fourth man among them has sex. The opening scene is the morning after and the woman he spent the night with stands hovering behind his laptop.

Cuckboy (Fiachra Corkery) and fellow incels Ghost (GoblinsGoblinsGoblins) Crusher (Jackson Ryan) and Einstain (Jimmy Kavanagh) are volubly and virulently anti-women. Feminists have destroyed male and female courtship," says one. But gradually they are shown to be desperate for intimacy, once the itch has been scratched by Cuckboy's hookup with Margaret (Justine Stafford).