Picture this: a religious sect in Nebraska wears butt plugs at all times because they’ve been warned: plug up or face the wrath of God.
The strangest part? They’re absolutely right.
It’s the alarming turn of events that kicks off London’s peculiar new musical, the aptly titled Hole, running at Soho Theatre before heading to the Edinburgh Fringe.
When their leader receives a direct message from the Holy Spirit, few members of his flock believe him. More fool them. A small group follows his lead, anxiously awaiting the looming apocalypse foretold by their founding father.
After seven years of discomfort, doubt begins to creep in until, one day, the entire unplugged population falls victim to The Great Sucking, hurled into the air bum-first, never to be seen again.
When teenagers Luke and Connor, who have spent almost half their lives plugged up are sent away on a mission of redemption, they soon discover they’re not alone. The only people left on Earth are the well-prepared Nebraskans and anyone else who just happened to be wearing a butt plug at the time – a pack of ‘perverted gays’.
Naturally, I came for the premise.
I should have been Hole’s target audience: a gay man with a penchant for silly jokes and anything that leans into the absurd.
I am, however, severely phobic of musicals. I’m yet to find a single one I’ve enjoyed enough to want to rush back and see it again. Perhaps it says a lot about me, but a show about unlubricated wooden butt plugs has finally managed to conquer a mountain I never thought possible.
Hole is the first musical I’m already planning to see again before it leaves London for the Edinburgh Fringe, where I have absolutely no doubt it will become one of the festival’s hottest tickets.
By the time I reached Soho Theatre, I was expecting to spend the evening nervously wincing through provocative anal jokes during a musical about butt plugs.
Instead, I found myself surprisingly moved by two quirky performers without a single shred of seriousness be as wacky as humanly possible but both so astonishingly talented – their rich harmonies while singing about anal sex in the sky and lead toilets with seatbelts (in case you were wondering how they used the loo) was an experience I never want to forget.
Hole was so wildly impressive I went from resisting the urge to nod off at the unreasonably late 9.30pm show and counting down the minutes until I could flee central London and get into bed to being instantly captivated by musical comedy duo Nadja Leonhard-Hooper and Jake Brasch.
With little more than their wonderfully childish imaginations, 99p red cups, plastic toys and a handful of bargain-bin props, they transported the audience into their obscene little world of vulgarity with total filth and genuine warmth. By 11pm, I was ready to sit through the whole thing again, devastated it was only 80 minutes with no interval.
Whatever Jake and Nadja were on when they wrote this should be studied, bottled and sold to anyone with an imagination. From start to finish, Hole feels like taking the greatest hallucinogenic on earth and one that, somehow, despite its out-there plotline one the whole family could genuinely enjoy.
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt a buzz quite like I did in that theatre, the last being Jinkx Monsoon’s astonishing performance as Judy Garland, again at Soho Theatre, earlier this summer.
There wasn’t a second when it felt like anyone in the room wasn’t completely on board. The audience howled until it hurt, regularly turning to stare at strangers beside them in total elated amazement.
But beyond the shock value, what makes Hole so special is that beneath all the gleeful filth sits a genuinely beautiful story about two boys discovering themselves and everything beyond the tiny lives they’ve always known. I wasn’t the only one whose tears of laughter became tears of something else entirely.
I have no doubt I’ll be seeing Hole many more times, probably in venues far bigger than Soho Theatre. I only hope success never sands off its rough edges, because they’re exactly what make it so magical.
Who knew the musical that finally won me over would be about an unlubricated wooden butt plug?
Hole runs at Soho Theatre until August 1 before moving to Underbelly Cowbarn, Edinburgh Fringe, from August 5 to 30.