Kiss Marry Kill review – a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction tale of love behind bars

Stone Nest, London
Dante or Die’s intriguing but underdeveloped story is based on the case of two men, each convicted of a homophobic murder, who became the first same-sex couple to marry in a UK prison

Basing a play on real events offers a safety blanket of authenticity, but the facts of a story being true is not always enough to make us believe in them. Dante or Die’s new production about a homophobic gay man in prison is packed with energy and built on significant research, but the storytelling skates over the surface of the knotty topics it tackles, and struggles to make its complex characters come alive.

Kiss Marry Kill tells the story of Jay (Dauda Ladejobi), imprisoned for life for murdering a man he started hooking up with, out of fear his friends would find out. To the clang of prison beds being stacked together, and the rapping of Lady Lykez, Jay hastily forgets his pregnant fiancee at home and embarks on a relationship with charming fellow murderer Paul (Graham Mackay-Bruce). Inspired by events that are stranger than fiction, the show draws on the story of Mikhail Gallatinov and Marc Goodwin, both convicted for murdering gay men, who became the first same-sex couple to marry in prison.