The Little Death by Mina Orak & Justin Atkins. King's Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London until 31 August 2025, 3✩✩✩. Review: William Russell.

Photo credit: Justin Atkins & Steven Restagno.

The Little Death by Mina Orak & Justin Atkins. King's Head Theatre, 115 Upper Street, London N1 to 31 August 2025.

3✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“An evening like no other.”

A camp cabaret is how its creators classify their story about how Mina, a young Turkish woman, cannot have an orgasm with any of her partners, a failure she tells her audience about with the help her vagina, her friend Justin and Miss Jasmine, who acts as compere and instructs the audience in how to behave. It is an evening like no other and has come from Central St Martins which has a drama department. Mina (Mina Orak) tells about her problem in graphic detail with some help from her friend Justin (Justin Atkins) and her Vagina (Cornelis Joubert) while Miss Jasmine (Jay Mankoo), who sports a rather splendid moustache, harangues the audience and brings on an illuminated sign from time to time telling everyone when to applaud. Funny, camp and shameless it suffers a bit from the fact that nobody has quite got the measure of the rather cavernous auditorium and are occasionally inaudible. On press night it seemed as if quite a lot of chums were in the audience who had seen it before - presumably at Central St Martins as – and I am not deaf – they knew quite a lot of the jokes almost before they were uttered. However, that said, Orak and Atkins have a lot to say about being a woman, about pleasure, trying everything to get it you can think of and sexual liberation. Orak, clad in a revealing body suit, dons several slinky garments, and retires at one point to a vertical bed of the kind familiar from pantomime with her Vagina, who also wears a slinky body suit, while Justin, sits at his laptop and watches without actually doing anything to help. There is also a video screen on which some startling moments can be seen of which the assault of the sperm on Mina is possibly the most striking. However one categorises it, and cabaret is possibly the best word, the evening which lasts about 70 minutes i performed with style, good humour and, or so they say, is also based on true events. Does Mina get that elusive orgasm? Your guess would be as good as mine, probably better. Go find out while she is telling her story.They also provide a handy list of five golden rules for a great blow job – eye contact, enthusiasm, rhythm, lots of spit and don't forget the balls.

Cast

Mina Orak – herself.

Justin Atkins – himself.

Cornelius Houbert – Mina's Vagina.

Jay Mankoo – Miss Jasmine.

Creatives

Lighting Designer – Sanli Wang.

Set Designer – Asli Kaygusuz.

Technical Team – Itching Tian.

Dramaturg – Jay Mankoo.

Movement Direction – Cornelis Joubert.

Costume – Grace Carolan & Andrea Pacheco Ozua.

Video Editors – Justin Atkins & Miguel Fernandes.

Theatre, cabaret 27 August 2024.

Photo credit – Justin Atkins & Steven Restagno.

An evening like no other.