By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Saturday 2 May (matinee) and runs through 30 May 2026 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (includes a 20-minute interval)

1 of the joys of the West End is that early casting news means we know Lee, who here bares his washboard abs, bottom and soul as a troubled stripper, will play Prince Charming opposite French and Saunders in Cinderella in the Palladium pantomime this Christmas.

• Read on for reasons including how giving the audience the opportunity to be complicit in the torture inflicted feels troubling

Lee is perhaps best known as Bear Sylvester in TV’s Doctors and so it’s appropriate that he plays Geoff here in the failing Dancing Bears strip club where we see his tears backstage as the dancers feel under threat from the rival club nearby growing in popularity where the men are physically bigger.

On arrival we’re presented with a voting paddle allowing us to show green or red depending on how open we’re feeling about receiving the attention of Lee’s Geoff, Kwami Odoom’s giving Trae or Darren Bennett’s older former porn star Donny.

Down in the bear pit audience members can sit onstage with fake money as bare buttocks are ground and the public can show their financial appreciation by tucking notes into jockstraps.

Director Matthew Xia (Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is About To Happen, Bush Theatre) is a master of whipping up the audience into a whooping frenzy of paddle waving and gawking as the unresolved sexual tension heightens.

But what effect is it having on our performers who might outwardly peacock for us but inwardly feel under threat from the newer, bigger boys on the block and have their own personal issues to work through?

Writer Dave Harris presents us with Jessie Mei Li’s management consultant to get to the metaphorical bottom of Trae’s need to people please his girlfriend at the expense of his own enjoyment, or alpha male Geoff’s anxiety about his physique and Donny’s lack of openness about his past.

Tender has the feel of a 1 act play that is so satisfied with itself that it endows itself with an interval it doesn’t quite deserve.

Lee may charm here but it’s his conventional pantomime happy ending that we’re most looking forward to this Christmas rather than the unpacking of male frailties that we’re presented with here.

Performers who rely on their physique to pay rent certainly do deserve sympathy when they realise that to do so can mess as much with their heads as those who pay to see their show.

Tender offers a peak behind the curtain to a world where literally there’s a lot more going on than the shallowness of what appears to initially be on offer.

Yet giving the audience the opportunity to paddle wave and be complicit in the torture so nakedly inflicted genuinely feels troubling rather than in any way satisfying. But perhaps that’s the point. Less Magic Mike, more tragic Mike.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Soho Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen a Soho Theatre show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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