Ice (crystal, meth) pervades the planet. It has no respect for geographic or social boundaries. Judges can become junkies. It can turn the most benign aged pensioner into a hardened criminal. Yet, in company with its sexually stimulating cousins, “G” and mephedrome, ice has had a specific pernicious impact on the gay scene.

British playwright Patrick Cash’s The Chemsex Monologues provides a snapshot of that contemporary scene though the voices of four participants, a narrator (Richard Watkins), a young twink ‘Nameless’ (Damien Killeen), ‘Fag Hag Cath’ (Remy Moynes) and a Sexual Health Worker, Daniel (Richard Unwin).

So, what is chemsex? Haven’t drugs like poppers always been a part of the gay scene? Well, yes, but chemsex is where a group of gay strangers gather together for a “chillout”, where the drugs are taken specifically prior to the sexual encounter and the sex is “chem formed”.

Cash doesn’t shy away from the power of the high nor from the sex act itself, the way the drug relaxes the anal sphincter and the “intense eroticism” of entering the bottom and the thrusting – although ejaculation is the exception rather than the rule.

The Narrator romanticises his first encounter with Nameless and what turns out to...