Pup Play: A Queer Pseudo-Lecture (of sorts) at Baron's Court Theatre 16 - 18 July 2026
"You might for a moment think 'what have I got myself in for?'" ★★
Em-barking (pun intended) on something of a world tour, Pup Play: A Queer Pseudo-Lecture (of sorts) is whole new kind of lesson. Admirably raising $1400 so far for LGBTQ+ charities, this one-man show of provocation and punk music comes with a halo of acclaim and notoriety.
Professor Handler David (Noah Pantano) is our host. He's a young academic by day, and a Pup and Handler by night. For our first lesson, he beckons us into the world of Pups, a subculture of people who role play as stylised canines: they crawl and bark and wear specialised gear like neoprene hoods with snouts and ears, and masks, leathers, and harnesses. While not entirely sexual for everyone (as much as 50% – Pantano displays some interesting stats on this), it emerged from the BDSM scene and can have a particular importance for queer people as a social outlet. As a Handler, Professor David also acts as a kind of trainer, helping others get into their Pup state of mind. Including you – yes, he gets the audience to bark.
This "pseudo-lecture" opens exactly as described, giving background and context to an underground world. As he recounts his introduction to it, the show promisingly evolves into a deep-dive of Pup psychology. His first time in a kennel-cum-cage is an abstraction of inadequacy and anger and pleasure and confusion. But it quickly loses this train of thought to become a cross between an interactive, visual essay and experimental theatre, without quite making it in either.
The interesting meta layer is that Pantano is also an academic himself, and there's some acknowledgement that he's sort of playing himself even though he's not playing himself. I'm not convinced this technique works for me as it puts too much diegetic distance between the audience and the character, and the character and the actor, preventing you from feeling anything for them. This problem is where the cracks begin to show.
Despite early promise, the monologue goes on to string together a series of emotionally intense but narratively incoherent sermons about...well, I can't quite put my finger on it, but it sounds important.
Arguments are left mid-air, sometimes uncomfortably: in attempting to demonstrate societal discomfort with queerness, Handler David seems to make an implication that somehow fisting should be an appropriate thing for work colleagues to know about – that you'd be sacked if they all knew what you got up to in private. Well, yes. That's why these things are done in private. And it's definitely not the type of thing you bring up at work. I do understand what he's getting at, and the hyperbole he's using to demonstrate it, but for me the extreme example means it's taken from a gay disapproval point to the much broader category of kink shaming, or something more anarchist entirely. Well, that's not exclusive to gays and kind of undermines its point. Not that I'm exactly sure what that point is.
Again, it loses this train of thought in favour of further lectures on homonormativity and assimilation. We meet "Homer the Homonormative Puppet", a stripy sock character whose humorous and increasingly disturbing discussions with Handler David slowly morph into the voice of his own internalised-homophobic subconscious. Pantano wants to make an old point about queerness only being acceptable if it's assimilated into heteronormative ideals, and okay maybe, but for me this is just a distraction from the juicy bits. It's nicely done, but a bit preachy. When you're talking to a queer audience, they've all already heard that before. What we actually want to be lectured on is the secret world of Pups. We want to know more about that.
Pup Play is certainly a queering of theatre in its experimental mode of storytelling – if we can call it that – but not in its form or structure. And though on my night there were a few minor technical errors (opening night, fair enough), which Pantano dealt with cheerfully, they weren't anything that could have caused the 60-minute show to have ballooned to a near 90, especially given its very fast pace. That's a considerable difference in this case because it means the pacing falls out of alignment with audience expectation and their natural sense of time. In other words, it starts to get samey. That effect is only compounded by the countless amount of false endings in the final third, each of which would have made great endings – if indeed they had been. This makes for a slightly tiring watch at that level of emotional intensity.
Nonetheless, the piece has a charming and slightly surprising self-deprecation about it ("raise your hand if you don't like the show...no refunds"), which is a nifty way to get away with some of those weaker moments, and it certainly works for me. But despite some funny lines here and there, it's heavy stuff overall. A lot of tears and angry punk. But even serious works of art can keep their sense of fun without cheating their intellect.
There is some great lighting design though, from claustrophobic blue spotlights to the raw exposure of the full house lights. These work beautifully with the action. And the creative use of visual gags, projections, and video work is among the best I've seen.
The opening prologue too, with its various warnings of vulnerability, audience participation, and explicit content, sets up an intriguing sense of debauched danger, as though descending down a dark shaft, quite unlike anything I've seen before. You might for a moment think "what have I got myself in for?" It's exciting, even if it doesn't fully deliver in the end.
Pantano, however, is a raw and earnest actor. I absolutely applaud his brave and wholehearted performance. He puts everything out there, inside and out, and that is worth seeing.
While I didn't totally follow the thread through this journey, Pantano is quite clearly a very smart man and an endearing performer. He has a generous and commendable mission to raise awareness of queer realities and complex kinks. And I really would like people to go and see the play regardless. You'll be giving to charity and getting a genuinely edgy show in return.
So pop on your lead, it's time to go walkies. Class dismissed.
Pup Play by Noah Pantano
Barons Court Theatre, 16 – 18 July 2026
Box Office: https://www.baronscourttheatre.com/pupplay
Instagram: @pantsoffproductions
