A Guide to Sexual Misery

2 / 5 stars
Leicester Square Theatre, London

"Some consider this show a lecture," says our host, the amateur Austrian sexologist Wolfgang Weinberger. "And some call it therapy." I'd call it a grab-bag of battle-of-the-sexes cliches, obvious statements and occasional apercus from relationship psychology. With his flip-charts, academic name-checks, and an air of speaking unpalatable truths, Weinberger (like so many men) greatly exaggerates his own endowments. In fact, this is a mildly amusing self-help seminar that cashes in on the same giggly prurience it professes to decry.

Weinberger begins by physically separating girlfriends from boyfriends, husbands from wives, so we can respond to his examination by secret ballot, as it were. To the same end, the audience must deliver its answers by humming. Many of the show's laughs come when Weinberger's questions meet with the sound of communal mooing. "Do you masturbate daily?" Loud hum. Then, to the men: "Would you be happy with a partner more intelligent than yourself?" Silence. This may be because the audience reacts more out of sympathy for the punchline than the truth, and because the gender separation stokes a predictable antagonism that's unrelated to honest enquiry.

But then, A Guide to Sexual Misery isn't remotely scientific. Weinberger asks leading questions, speaks in euphemisms ("Who here," he asks, "has never measured his best friend?"), and is partial to poor generalisations. Is it really "next to impossible" for a woman in her 30s to find a good man? And yet, there are flashes of insight, as when Weinberger discusses studies that reveal women are unhappier with their sex lives than men, or explores the incompatibility between male and female approaches to problem-solving. It's an enjoyable 90 minutes of slap-and-tickle, but one waits for a theatrical climax in vain.