Maybe 666 is intended as a dissection of masculinity in crisis, a grotesque parody of unreconstructed male mores and a searing exposition of the dispiriting retreat into infantilism that underpins the 'New Lad’ culture. Or maybe it is just a puerile stream of willy and bottom gags that would not look out of place in the playground. Either way it is very funny.
Set in a prison, the four male members (tee-hee) of this cast reduce to slapstick the rituals and displays of machismo culture before emerging from their prison garb as implausibly-phallused satyrs – roaring and swaggering around the stage to the music of those old devils the Rolling Stones.
Yet, despite the undeniable vigour and virtuosity of the performances, 666 fails to live up to the outrage promised by its publicity. All the show really wants to do is make an audience laugh – regardless of how cheap a laugh it is. It foregoes the kind of real anger, that could have made it genuinely edgy and threatening, in favour of pratfalls. For all its bawdy force and in-your-face posturing, 666 is a curiously polite show – an adult pantomime, then, with plenty of filth but far too little fury.