Birds and Bees review — this is a lecture not a play

★★☆☆☆
I can believe that schoolchildren, for whom an earlier version of this playful yet earnest mooch through the issues of gender, sex and identity was first performed online during the pandemic, might get something out of Charlie Josephine’s short play. Josephine, who uses the pronouns they/them, became a cause celebre last year for their non-binary Joan of Arc protest play I, Joan at Shakespeare’s Globe. And like I, Joan, Birds and Bees suggests a talented, intelligent writer who retreats too readily into strident pronouncements.

The story is a kind of The Breakfast Club for the 21st century with four mismatched characters in detention. They discuss Year 11’s glamour couple, Cherrelle and Jack, who are in trouble after Jack leaked their sex pictures. Jack,