Lord Arthur's Bed, King's Head Theatre

Regular punters at the King’s Head are familiar with cheerily naked gay romps, they are quite a speciality in this much favoured North London haunt, possibly enhanced by the intimate dimensions of the theatre itself. In Martin Lewton's Lord Arthur's Bed the stark lighting and very basic set – a double bed and a dining chair – further highlight the sensation of almost prurient proximity, something almost immediately addressed by Ruaraidh Murray’s very in-yer-face Jim, who tells the audience that “you are our webcam”.

So far, so Pirandello: we are not so much watching a play about the contrasts in social attitudes toward homosexuality and cross-dressing segueing constantly and sometimes giddily between1868 and 2008, as perving a couple of fit young lads – Jim and Donald - in their bedroom, as they bicker and kvetch and work through the stuff on their minds right now. But sadly, as the play progresses the here-and-now strand gradually loses our attention.

The historical part of the play, apparently quite true and carefully researched by the author, is however a fascinating saga of everyday transvestism amongst the Victorian upper classes, and how the sheer affrontery of the two “gurls”, Stella and Fanny (in real life the sons of a judge and a stockbroker), who delight in strutting their stuff in the Strand, leads to a celebrated court case which gripped the public attention in 1868 just as Oscar Wilde’s did some 25 years later. (Right, the original "Stella, Lady Clinton", with an admirer)

In a plotting device which would strain credibility in the corniest of Hollywood films, affluent and civilly partnered yuppies Jim and Donald “just happen” to live in the house of 19th-century MP Lord Arthur Clinton – son of the Duke of Newcastle, don’t you know – where he allegedly consummated his d-i-y “gay marriage” to Ernest Boulton (aka Stella). Moreover, after a earthmoving rut between our two likely lads, a visiting card bearing the legend “Stella, Lady Clinton” emerges from under the floorboards, spurring Donald to hightail it down to the local Public Library and to research the whole mysterious business. From which diligent research emerges the dramatic body of this play, which Donald and a mostly reluctant Jim, proceed to act out, scene by scene, in the privacy of their bedroom.

Spencer Charles Noll sparkles both as urban uber-twink Donald and saucy, sassy Stella, “the Star of the Evening”, flipping between his two principal personae (not to mention the various other ones, mostly court witness and officials, which Lewton’s highly demanding script imposes on him) with great dexterity and lightness of touch. Not surprising perhaps, seeing that he has been starring in this Theatre North touring production since May 2009, and has already won the Michael MacLiammoir Award for best actor for his Dublin performance. By turns boyish and doe-eyed, sentimental and political, then archly feminine in the grand Victorian manner. But never does he slip into bog-standard pantomime camp.

Murray’s streetwise, sarcastic Scot (with unresolved “issues” and haunted by his mother’s rejection of his sexual identity) hasn’t quite made the transition from the theatrical version of Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting and a number of thuggish roles in various films and television cop shows in which he has featured to the cynical, Pink Pound-spending City Slicker imagined by Lewton (author of 19 plays, and director of 20, mostly at the Nottingham Playhouse), and doesn’t quite convince as the more dreamy-eyed, but sexually confident Donald’s much more macho civil partner. The inner conflict doesn’t really show, and he seems, well, frankly, too straight. However he consistently charms and intrigues us with his sometimes glowering, but always highly energetic stage presence.

Without revealing the dramatic ending to the Victorian court case strand, it is hardly a spoiler to say that Jim and Donald’s contemporary travails end with more of a whimper than a bang (although a shag is on the cards, as they finally retreat under the sheets). There is simply not enough dramatic interest in contrasting moody maverick Jim’s vodka-fuelled existential sexual self doubt with sweetie pie Donald’s unerring politicized gay consciousness, nor enough circumstantial evidence that the death penalty for homosexuals in distant Iran and the odd case of gay-bashing in London constitute gathering storm clouds on the horizon of their self indulgent hedonistic lifestyle.

While Noll and Murray have enormous, infectious fun with the set piece re-enactments of the strand about Lord Arthur, Stella and Fanny (Ruaraidh Murray’s impersonations of the numerous court case figures are a hoot) and struggle gamely with the clunky, overly expository nature of most of the contemporary strand, it is ultimately the slightly voyeuristic slap-and-tickle frisson of the bedroom comedy which engages our attention most. Suggesting that the historical and the political elements of gay theatre can still be trumped by the farcical. Is this what we really want?

• Book for Lord Arthur’s Bed at the King’s Head Theatre, Islington until 10 April