As answering machine messages from Halifax bank about missed loan payments start arriving, Jonas finds a new way of making money as a model on a cam site. His secret cyber sex begins amusingly enough with the actor giving one performance into his laptop while sharing his true feelings in hilarious asides shared with the audience. Turning his bedside photo of his Mum facedown before taking his shirt off and commencing a cam session seems a funny and endearing gesture, at least to begin with…
Handsome, toned and uninhibited, Jonas find no lack of customers for his cam sex-shows. The script hints at a subtle shift from the in-person world to this lucrative virtual existence as when he and his (unseen) husband Kieran increasingly text each other in different parts of the same house.
One of his online customers, an older American called Tony (Neil Burgess in a pre-recorded voiceover role), asks for a private exclusive session. Paying more, Tony calls the shots what he wants Jonas to do sexually. These scenes are increasingly explicit and in a venue of such intimacy as the Kings Head Theatre, this is where Batten’s performance earns the appellation “unflinching”.