**Seven Dials Playhouse • 17th Feb - 1st Mar 2026**

It’s been a couple of years since my last visit to the Seven Dials Playhouse, so I was glad to have an opportunity to not only refamiliarize myself with this well-hidden gem of a 100-seat fringe theatre, but to also experience David Drake’s play The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me directed by Adam Zane. I specifically chose the word ‘experience’ rather than ‘watch’, as what unfolds is a visceral, challenging yet ultimately rewarding one man play that plots a young man’s coming of age, taking place pre, during, and post the height of the AIDS crisis. As his life unfolds on stage the audience find themselves being reminded of the intolerance of the 1960’s, the ignorance of the 1980’s and the progress that had subsequently been made through the actions of activist groups, like the queer led protest movement Act Up, as the world slipped into a new millennium.

It’s a lot to pack in, and whilst actor Gabriel Clark’s unnamed character remains at the core of the narrative, Drake’s script seems to revel in dropping the audience from one set piece to the next, charting the changeing demeanour of the play’s protagonist from wide-eyed musical-theatre loving innocent to newly motivated activist and campaigner. These jumps in time, narrative and historical context are unceremoniously abrupt and embed themselves so deeply into each new part of the story that it almost leaves you with the sensation of whiplash. To compound this feeling even further, a number of performance styles are also employed to convey each of the central character’s experiences, and just as we manage to catch up with the new dramatic rhythm of the moment we have landed in, we are off again, taken deep into the heart of another time and another place as we witness the life unfolding before us littered with all the excitement, fear, sex, love and loss that will be familiar to any audience members of a certain age who themselves may have grown up in the same era.

For Gen Z audience members, The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me will no doubt feel more like a historical piece, the title itself referring to a pivotal night in 1985 when the central characters eyes are opened to societies indifference towards the AIDS epidemic by seeing Larry Kramer’s play ‘The Normal Heart’, (a play that has only had one major London revival since it was first performed here in 1986). The subject matter of Drake’s own semi-autobiographical play will have hit a lot closer to home when it was first performed Off-Broadway in 1992, receiving its UK premiere two years later, and whilst it charts a moment in time that has found itself the focus of numerous plays since then, I confess to having seldom seen one written or performed with such captivating energy as this.

As a one man play, it’s ultimate success was only ever going to be guaranteed by the quality of the performer found to fill the central role, (it was the plays author David Drake that played the part in the original off Broadway production) and in Gabriel Clark they have found a young actor clearly at the peak of his powers if this performance, more than worthy of the standing ovation it received on press night, is anything to go by. Such a roller-coaster ride of a role is not an easy one to get right, given how it ebbs and flows between the comedic and the tragic, but Clark more than delivers every step of the way, slipping through this myriad of emotions with utter conviction, and quickly becoming the glue that holds the somewhat unconventional structural approach of Drake’s script together.

Whilst The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me is not a completely flawless play, there being a couple of set pieces that would have benefited from being cut a bit tighter, under director Adam Zane ‘s superb direction the energy is sustained fairly consistantly throughout and, along with a virtuoso performance from Gabriel Clark, both have created a powerful piece of theatre that will certainly stay with me longer than most.

Gabriel Clark is clearly going to be a talent to watch, his impeccable performance worthy of a full five stars even if, for me, the play itself falls just one star short of the mark. That being said, treat yourself this LGBTQIA+ history month and get a ticket to see before it’s too late.

★ ★ ★ ★