Kings Head Theatre - 8th November 2026
It has been just over a year since I first saw writer and performer Ben Everett Riley present a short taster of Thou Shalt Sit The F*** Down, an idea he was working on which has since grown into a one-hour, one-man play, appearing at the Kings Head Theatre last night for a one-off performance. Back in 2025 he had presented the massively truncated version as part of the highly enjoyable Outcast, an initiative by Queer Theatre UK to showcase new work. Having both seen and photographed the event for a feature in Jack The Lad magazine, (Issue 43), I was not only intrigued to see how the show had developed in the intervening months, but was also instantly impressed to find a number of the other actors from that original showcase coming out to support Riley for this latest iteration.
So, what of the play. Intriguingly billed as ‘A filthy, unhinged queer comedy about a kid’s entertainer and the lengths we go to just to get a tip’, the strapline unfortunately takes much of the sting out of the plays opening gambit, leaving the deliciously deliberate misdirection Riley employs, to lure the audience into thinking his character’s ‘services’ are something altogether more ‘adult’, rather flat. There is still plenty to enjoy in the well-constructed wordplay of Riley’s opening monologue, but its payoff is somewhat diminished by our prior knowledge that Will is in fact a children’s party entertainer. The twists and turns that follow however do bring a number of bigger, less expected surprises in their wake, (not least of which is the fact that the story has actually been drawn from many real-life experiences).
So, it’s as Whacky Will that Riley’s character finds himself regularly surrounded by “snotty kids and prosecco fuelled parents”, during the parties he performs at in some of London’s more salubrious boroughs. Armed with his lycra superhero outfit, (nice work by costume designer Eve Oakley), and plenty of bubble-wands, (one of which is given to each audience member on arrival for use during a designated moment of fun audience participation), Will has also constructed a set of 10 commandments that serve as a mantra-like code of conduct, not only to ensure that he remains at the top of his profession, but that he also hopes will help him guarantee the all-important tip at the end of each gig… after all, happy parents equals happy tips. However, it is the commandment, ‘Thou shalt always prepare for the unexpected’, that soon becomes the most prescient as, alongside unfortunate costume mishaps, an intimate encounter with one of the children’s fathers, and finding himself being usurped by the new recruit his agency has just taken on, Will is left questioning if he still has what it takes to succeed in the profession.
Whilst there is plenty that warrants the new one-hour runtime of the show, Riley having found enough in the story to keep the Kings Head Theatre audience as entertained as the children at one of Will’s parties, this high octane production ironically seems to suffer from almost having too much crammed in to the shows sixty minute runtime, and whilst there are a number of nicely constructed set pieces along the way, the energy level of Riley’s performance is seldom allowed to drop below ‘full-on’ throughout. A bit more confidence in the material from both Riley and director Ryan Graham Hinds might have allowed the performance to breathe sufficiently enough to allow for a more nuanced, three-dimensional portrayal of the central character. Instead, the frenetic energy served only to highlight a sense that this production never quite seemed to know stylistically what it wanted to be, as what starts as a monologue soon progresses into Riley acting out dialogue scenes with/as several of the characters, working hard to continually bounce between playing both sides of multiple conversations. These moments are themselves interspersed with Riley breaking the fourth wall for the occasional moment of audience participation that themselves occasionally veer dangerously close to being more like a stand-up routine instead of the play it started out as, all of which Riley is left to juggle his way through at quite a pace.
Despite this, Thou Shalt Sit The F*** Down still actually manages to remain a fun frolic, albeit a little disjointed in places, but presentation style(s) aside, Ben Everett Riley is clearly a gifted writer and the script, in terms of narrative and dialogue, is a solid one. What also impressed on this production was the sound design, (for which Riley is also credited) and lighting design, (Migle Dullevicius) which, given that this is ostensibly a fairly contained one-man show, brought plenty of well observed detail into the mix to make ‘Whacky Will’s’ world feel more expansive than it might have otherwise been. Whilst I’m not sure this quite feels like the definitive version of writer and performer Ben Everett Riley’s play just yet, it’s a gem of an idea with the potential to become an even more entertaining piece of comedy theatre.
★ ★ ★ ½
review: Simon J. Webb