WHAT BEGINS AS SOMETHING INTRIGUING TURNS INTO SOMETHING DEEPLY MOVING

By Kara Buffrey | @karabuffrey11 ⭐⭐⭐⭐ | Press Invite

I remember my own conversations after sex, so I was intrigued. But I wasn’t quite prepared for how Conversations After Sex would sit with me. I went in expecting something interesting, maybe even provocative – the title certainly hints at something raw and candid – but I didn’t expect to leave with such a lump in my throat.

The play opens quietly, almost disorientingly. A woman and a man lie naked on a bed, strangers to each other but somehow familiar. It’s deliberately ambiguous – and for the first few minutes, I found myself squinting to figure out who he was and why they were there. Is he her partner? A friend? A fling? That initial confusion stuck with me a little longer than I expected – not in a bad way, but it set the tone: this isn’t a story that will spell itself out for you. You’re expected to feel your way through it, like she does.

As the show unfolds, we come to realise that each scene is a different encounter. Same woman, different men – all played by the same actor. And the effect of that is surprisingly powerful. At first, I found it hard to distinguish one man from the next, but that, too, felt deliberate. These men blur together not because they’re forgettable, but because they are not really the focus. She is. Her grief. Her emptiness. Her quiet attempts to fill the silence left behind.

It’s never stated outright, but you start to realise someone significant has died. That grief hovers over every conversation like a presence in the room – you can’t see it, but you can feel it in the way she reaches out to connect, to hold on, even if only for a night. And then it hits you: the death is still raw for her. It’s not something in the distant past. She is still in it. Still trying to carry it, or maybe outrun it. And that’s when the play really starts to tug at your heartstrings.

What struck me the most was how honest the writing felt. The conversations after sex are mundane and profound all at once – a mix of small talk, confession, flirtation, and vulnerability. There’s humour (thank God, because it stops it becoming too heavy), but it’s never forced. It just feels like two people trying to make sense of themselves in the company of another.

Olivia Lindsay gives a stunning performance. She carries so much in her stillness – a flicker of the eyes, a small shift in posture, and suddenly you feel everything she’s holding back. There’s a quiet strength to her, even when she’s completely unravelled. Julian Moore-Cook is equally impressive. He plays each of the men with subtle differences – enough that you know they’re not the same, but with an underlying sameness that almost feels intentional. Like the men don’t matter so much as what she’s hoping to find in them.

The staging is sparse – mostly just a bed, a few changes in light, and some clever use of projected titles to ground us in time and place. But honestly, that’s all it needs. The simplicity lets the words breathe. It allows the performances to land without distraction.

By the end, I found myself unexpectedly emotional. There’s no grand climax, no sweeping resolution – just a quiet, aching honesty that stays with you. It’s not a play that ties things up in a bow. Instead, it gently unfolds and leaves you to sit with the messiness of love, loss, and longing. Spoiler alert, you find yourself hopeful that they’ve found each other.

Conversations After Sex is one of those plays that sneaks up on you. What begins as something intriguing turns into something deeply moving. I left the theatre feeling like I’d sat with someone in their grief – and in some strange way, that felt like a privilege.

Conversations After Sex is running at Park Theatre until Saturday 17 May.

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Photo Credit: Jake Bush