Russell Tovey has always carried that rare mix of warmth and provocation. In Jason Hetherington’s new Man About Towneditorial, he becomes a pseudo-intellectual daydream, equal parts campus crush and art-school rebel, framed in cigarettes, coffee cups, and impossibly tight slacks. It’s cheeky and knowingly camp, a little bit beat poet, a little bit Soho gallery flirt, all of it performed with Tovey’s signature grin that says he’s very much in on the joke.
The editorial’s setup feels like a scene from a film that never existed: an over-caffeinated actor sitting in a café that smells like bergamot and ambition, musing over a dog-eared script no one asked him to read. The lighting is moody but playful, and Hetherington gives Tovey room to perform himself, which is always when he’s at his best. The cigarettes are more prop than habit, the espresso cup a punctuation mark between smirks.
Recent months have been busy for Tovey. He’s been juggling his podcast Talk Art with new film projects and a much-discussed art exhibition he’s curating in London. He recently joked about owning “too many sculptures with visible abs,” which, coming from the man who turned his love of art collecting into a global platform, feels delightfully self-aware. He’s also been spotted at Frieze, palling around with Tracey Emin and playfully referring to himself as a “professional art gossip.”
Hetherington captures all that energy, the cultivated cool of a man who knows both his lighting and his literature. The tight tailoring nods to old-school movie stars but never tips into parody. There’s irony stitched into every hemline, from the rolled-up sleeves to the half-unbuttoned oxford shirt that makes the whole thing look accidentally sexy.
What makes this editorial work is that it doesn’t take masculinity too seriously. It’s staged, yes, but that’s the point, a theater of charm where being self-aware is the ultimate style move. Tovey smolders not because he’s pretending to be someone else, but because he’s laughing at the idea of having to.
The result is a performance that winks at the viewer while sipping its third espresso: equal parts Sunday philosophy, art-world gossip, and unapologetic camp. Hetherington and Tovey remind us that intellect can be erotic, humor can be high fashion, and that sometimes the sexiest thing a man can do is think — or at least look like he is.
