★★★★Review 'When the Enemy Comes', Teater Katapult
New Danish Drama: Sperm and Rubble, Heat-Seeking Sperm Cells, Cumshot Orgasms in the Porn Machine, and a Micro-Pistol
4. april 2026.Kulturnyt, Ambiorn Happy
Review of 'When the Enemy Comes': I like sex and war. Sex because it’s my expression of love. War because it’s my way of standing up for myself when the enemy invades my country. But mixing the two?
Well, huha, that’s exactly what they do. The play 'When the Enemy Comes' blends sex and war so you can’t really tell bodily ejaculations apart from cascades of missile attacks. The extremely sex-fixated language is innovative slang, a knock-off from Anthony Burgess’s gravestone, 'Clockwork Orange'. Authentic scenography à la OnlyFans, effective. 5 expressive and energetic actors on Viagra. Music and lighting are decent. All in all, an uppercut from the underground of Aarhus theatre. 4 stars with erection issues.
The play throbs with the sexual rhythms of our timeI have to be honest: 'When the Enemy Comes' is an okay play because it throbs with the sexual rhythms of our time and matches the image of headless naked chickens running around. The piece is very violent, extremely vulgar, absurd without meaning – a stew where everyone contributes a squirt from their crotch, and absolutely no one wants to be the chef.
That’s why I suggest it should be translated into German or Spanish. Because the play is different, and Germans and Spaniards have a slightly higher tolerance for new drama.
But in a Danish context it tastes to me like a piece of smørrebrød with way too much pussy juice and sperm, garnished with gunpowder and bullets. The taste is too weird for me personally. Way too far from the vet’s late-night snack.
Luckily, the young audience is thrilled!
The young audience laughs and enjoys themselvesThat’s why there is quality in 'When the Enemy Comes'. The young audience thinks the play is funny. The youngsters laugh at “naughty words” – I won’t list them – a bare male ass shocks them so hard the ceiling is about to fall on their heads. They are provoked by the Nazi figure on stage who behaves like shit.
The young people like the play – on their own terms. And that is quality: that someone actually likes the art you make, even if other balder men dream of rye bread with liver pâté.
There is no story in the play, but the audience doesn’t careImagine 2 men and a woman living in a basement while war is raging, and then they are discovered by a sadistic officer hunting for new bodies for the battlefield.
Everything about war is talked about as sex. Defeat at the front is “impotence”. Bombs and missiles are “cumshot orgasms”. Pistols are “dicks”.
And everything about sex is talked about as war. Desire is “attack me”. Pregnancy is “siege of the enemy”. The body is “the casing”.
In the play the oppressed are abused by the officer (“Supreme Ass-Licker”) and his recruit (“the Dog”). It takes a while for them to get killed – until the girl in the group gives the officer’s micro-pistol a blowjob.
A good taste of iron in the airHow the absurd antics end, you’ll have to experience for yourself. But I can reveal that there is no real story – and that the audience doesn’t mind. The play is a fragmentary scene-concert with clips of hardcore OnlyFans meeting National Socialist Hitler’s hysterical temperament, with a taste of downfall and resistance. A taste of iron in the air from the good use of stage blood.
Thanks to the team behind 'When the Enemy Comes', and thanks to Jonas Thorsted Frederiksen for writing absurdly about the two most important things in life: love and standing up for yourself. It was a good experience. Now I’m going to the fridge for that liver pâté.
When the Enemy Comes
Cast Nicoline Dybdahl Malling, Simon Ellehave Jensen, Jonas Thorsted Frederiksen, Julius Rechnagel Skovgaard and Jonas Engelbrecht Larsen
Script Jonas Thorsted Frederiksen