The Line of Beauty review – Hollinghurst’s Gatsby-esque social satire is an act of class | platform

HHow do you adapt a novel as big and sparkling as Alan Hollinghurst’s 2004 Booker Prize-winning novel? It is a book that depicts not just the hypocrisy of one elite, a Thatcher-loving family, but the hypocrisy of an entire era, where power and politics teem alongside the hedonistic explosion of gay culture in the 1980s.

It might take a full series (as in the case of Andrew Davies’ TV adaptation), but Jack Holden, whose 2021 play Cruise traversed similar ground, does a solid job here. He gets to the dark heart of the book as he chops up and shuffles the order of things so that the timeline of the three central sections is shorter and smoother, but also less dense.

The focal point is the ruling-class Feyden family, whose arrogant patriarch Gerald (Charles Edwards) is a newly elected Tory MP, and at whose Kensington Gardens home the middle-class, gay Oxford graduate Nick Guest (Jasper Talbot) becomes a guest.

Nick is the observant insider/outsider in this particular milieu. Talbot – a fast rising star – plays his role with a fine balance between a misty youthful love of reading and a sweet, innocent sass. His clear reflections on beauty, which are key to the story, do not seem contradictory on the whole, and his final monologue, in which he affirms the value of beauty as an essential force in his life, is one of the play’s most moving.

Michael Grandage brings great directorial polish and speed, and the cast is excellent, from Alastair Nwachukwu as Nick’s funny, sarcastic working-class friend Leo, to Artie Frochan as the wealthy Wani, who is engaged to a woman but in a secret relationship with Nick. “Are you a faggot? Asks Kat (Ellie Bamber), the fragile daughter of the Veden family, with unrecognized insult, before adding: ‘I like gays.’ As is her family, on the surface, though this is an age in which the gay community is insidiously othered even by those who appear carelessly accepting.

Christopher Oram’s set is light on its feet, moving us seamlessly from the Feddens’ lavish party to Leo’s kitchen table, while the soundtrack – The Communards, New Order, Frankie Goes to Hollywood – captures the evolving club culture of the time. It’s all engaging, with elegantly executed social satire.

But what a story and so many emotions to go with it. Nick’s dance with Gerald’s girlfriend, the “Great Lady” Margaret Thatcher, comes early, so his devilish pact with conservatism seems to have come too soon in the wake of his declaration of his liberal credentials to Leo. In its depiction of sex, the play does not fully reflect the raw and frank nature of Hollinghurst’s book. It gets somewhat truncated in the love stories as well. There’s great chemistry between Leo and Nick, and even greater tension when Wannie and Nick huddle together around a toilet cistern and rows of cocaine.

But we don’t really get into these relationships fully. This means that the devastation of the AIDS crisis is felt – but not in the gut. However, something disgusting builds by the end, when the upper-class snobbery and homophobia, if not racism, becomes clear to see. The strength of this production lies in its subtle similarities to The Great Gatsby (a comparison also made when Hollinghurst’s book was published). Nick is not just a guest but Carraway’s character. I’m not part of this privileged, spoiled crew, but I’m not far from them either. While the Feddens are really like Tom and Daisy, bumping into other people and moving forward without any casualties.

We heard early on how an MP caused a scandal by being caught with a young sex worker. It provides a neat ending to Gerald’s double scandal at the end, which exemplifies the corruption of the Tory Party of the era. But he refuses to see this scandal on par with Nick’s sexual exposure. “You’re holding a little ponies,” he spits, and we finally see his bigotry exposed.

So: a reminder of that, a warning to our age of rising intolerance, and an adaptation worth watching.