Sauna Boy (The Motley Bauhaus) ★★★1/2

Written by Dan Ireland-Reeves. Midsumma Festival. The Motley Bauhaus. 29 Jan – 3 Feb, 2024

Ever wondered what life is like for the people who work behind-the-scenes in a gay sauna? Dan Ireland-Reeves’s Sauna Boy has your answers and, well let’s be honest, it’s probably exactly like you think it is.

Dan (Ireland-Reeves) is a young out of work actor in London who gets a job working at West End Sauna. Cleaning up the cubicles, glory holes, sling and dark rooms and generally looking after the clientele of their little establishment. Between the unpredictable moods of the owner, the bitchy Venezuelan masseuse and the oddball regulars (with one or two genuine hotties) he’s in for quite the year ahead. When Dan (or Danny-boy as he becomes known) is unexpectedly promoted to manager, he gives himself three goals – update the website to the 21st century, get a liquor licence and sell out all 80s lockers.

So what’s a sex-on-venue establishment like when you’re not there for sex? Awful by the sound of it. Mopping up cum, seeing things you wish you hadn’t seen and trying to keep things hygienic, while dealing with a flighty boss and attempting to retain some dignity. It’s also enlightening and a bit desensitising too. 

Ireland-Reeves has a cheeky charm to him that’s easy to watch as he narrates his adventures in the dark rooms, mazes and corridors of a London sauna. He’s a good storyteller and gives the audience what they want – a bit of sex, a bit of drama, a bit of tragedy and a lot of comedy. Certain jokes drew knowing laughs from quarters of the audience, whether it was a comment on fisting lube or the communal behaviour of men in bathhouses. 

But the story plays out more or less as you imagine it might. Do the staff have sex with the clients? Sure, but not as much as you’d imagine. Is it gross? Definitely, but you get used to it. Is it a viable career choice? Not for most people. There are hints of the kind of community of gay men a sauna can foster and some bizarre sexual exploits, but overall the sauna sounds like just one of the bad jobs you have in your youth that you leave behind when you “get a real job”.