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Synopsis In an oak-panelled room in Oxford, ten young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. Members of an elite student dining society, the boys are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine. But this isn’t the last huzzah: they’re planning a takeover. Welcome to the Riot Club. Age guidance 14+ Downstairs
Laura Wade’s new play Posh received its world premiere last night (15 April 2010, previews from 9 April) at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, where it continues its limited season until 22 May.
The play - described variously as “Brideshead meets Lord of the Flies” and a “declaration of war” on the Conservative Party in the run-up to next month’s General Election - explores themes of class, power, privilege and the influence of ‘old money’ via an elite student dining society at Oxford who are bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery and decadence.
The 14-strong company comprises Leo Bill, Jolyon Coy, David Dawson, Richard Goulding, Harry Hadden-Paton, Kit Harington, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Joshua Mcguire, Tom Mison and James Norton as the ten members of the fictional Riot Club, as well as Charlotte Lucas, Fiona Button, Daniel Ryan and Simon Shepherd. Lyndsey Turner directs.
Here’s an overview of what the overnight critics thought...
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (five stars) – “Scabrously funny, disgustingly smug, and deeply disturbing, Laura Wade’s brilliant new play Posh shows a group of public school rich boys behaving badly ... The most ferocious member of Wade’s Riot Club is Leo Bill’s ratty and vengeful Alistair Ryle who delivers a broadside against the mediocrity, poverty and aspirations of the hoi polloi ... The climactic horror is the toff equivalent of the baby-stoning scene in Edward Bond’s Saved; this is a classic Royal Court play with a view from the other end of the telescope. Lyndsey Turner’s superb production makes great use of a capella songs to cover scene changes and heighten the raucous mood, which is enhanced with cunning beauty by Paule Constable’s lighting ... Tom Mison as the secret banker, Henry Lloyd-Hughes as a Greek rich kid and the extraordinary David Dawson as a febrile poet of the right also shine in a hand-picked cast that do wonderful injustice to the play of the year so far and a fantastic Court follow-through to Jerusalem and Enron.”
Michael Billington in theGuardian (three stars) – “While I'm glad to see the Royal Court confronting the supposedly taboo subject of class, the play occasionally overstates its case and raises issues of dramatic probability … Wade hits a number of nails on the head … But the play suffers from showing all ten members of her fictional club as total shits: for the sake of good drama, one wishes at least one of them displayed some moral qualm about their actions … And, when it comes to the climax, plausibility flies out of the window … Turner orchestrates the group activity – punctuated by close-harmony songs – well, and allows individuals to emerge: David Dawson lends a gay poet a distinctively sharp profile, Leo Bill is suitably reptilian as the club's most outspoken member and Henry Lloyd-Hughes impresses as a wealthy Greek who aims to be more English than the English ... While I endorse Wade's attitudes, her play admits no shades of grey. What she has to say is eminently worth hearing, especially as the election looms. But her argument would be even stronger if it admitted that, even within the ranks of the bluebloods, there were occasional spasms of doubt and decency.”
Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail (three stars) – “Boldly, the state-funded Royal Court has come up with a satire about an Oxford University dining club … Predictably, Miss Wade disapproves … More than anything, this play is a political attack ... The viciousness of some of the snobbery is, in places, hard to believe … There is also some plainly daft stuff about a mysterious Establishment operating from gentlemen's clubs in St James'. I happen to live in such a club and we can barely run a billiards tournament, let alone the country. Were Miss Wade better informed, she might write about the unreconstructed, male-dominated power nexus of the trade unions and the Labour party … a couple of solecisms. 'Bread roll' and 'toilet' are not expressions you will normally hear Bullingdon boys utter. Nor does one tip club staff. The humour is at times forced and the drunkenness becomes tiresome, but Daniel Ryan is excellent as the pub landlord who gradually loses his temper. In Tom Mison, who plays the weak president of the Riot, the production even has a David Cameron lookalike … So does this show amount to anything more than a swipe at Cameron's Tories? Yes.”
Henry Hitchings in the Evening Standard (four stars) – “In Laura Wade’s beautifully observed, very funny play ... her invention, the Riot Club, is a kind of Bullingdon lite … The swanky horseplay, repellent yet fascinating, is brilliantly acted, while Lyndsey Turner’s skilful direction means there’s never a dull moment. There are deft and surprising touches … Surrealism is never far away. The ensemble work is outstandingly good: fluid, layered, always plausible. The standout performances come from Henry Lloyd-Hughes, magnetic as sinister Dimitri, and Leo Bill, thrillingly repulsive as the reptilian Alistair … There are flecks of implausibility. Would a Riot Club member really refer to the ‘toilet’ and sneer at someone who called it a ‘lavatory’? Where are the gruesome initiation rituals? And the Riot Club members don’t even drink all that much. Still, Wade’s gifts as a satirist are beyond doubt. While its conclusion strives a little too hard for immediate relevance, this play combines topicality with dramatic appeal. It mostly works a treat.”
Domenic Cavendish in the Daily Telegraph - “Braying, arrogant, narcissistic, sexist, cruel - deeply snobbish and filthy rich. Posh ... is just about the worst advertisement for being young, loaded and at Oxford that you could imagine – and it’s totally plausible... It’s also killingly funny... The reason why the play is political dynamite is that it allows us to draw our own unfavourable conclusions about the mindset of the Conservatives. With 6 May looming large, it could conceivably be the first play in history to decide the outcome of an election, frightening the life out of wavering voters by shining a spotlight on those skeletons in the Tory leadership closet... The timing of the production might be said to amount to a declaration of war – given how much is at stake – except that really it’s a continuation of a one-sided battle that has been running in the arts throughout the New Labour years... For the Labour Party to go into opposition without a well-timed kick up the backside strikes me as a major and damning dereliction of duty on the part of the playwrights of this country.”
Scabrously funny, disgustingly smug, and deeply disturbing, Laura Wade’s brilliant new play Posh shows a group of public school rich boys behaving badly in an Oxfordshire private dining club and lamenting their loss of a country they think they both own and created.
Clearly based on the Bullingdon at Oxford University (of which David Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson were prominent members), the play’s Riot Club is also a metaphor in the class divide, and represents a streak of political brutality in the Conservative Party that for the moment lies dormant as candidate “Dave” develops his compassionate image.
It’s hugely ironic that one of Cameron’s “big ideas” is for a citizens’ army recruited to repair a damaged society, presumably the one duffed up by his chums in the Bullingdon. The most ferocious member of Wade’s Riot Club is Leo Bill’s ratty and vengeful Alistair Ryle who delivers a broadside against the mediocrity, poverty and aspirations of the hoi polloi, as well as chaps who keep their cheese in the fridge.
The others live in country houses overrun by tourists and one has been reduced to sneaking an application to join the Deutsche Bank. They assemble in Anthony Ward’s wittily conceived gastropub dining room in their evening dress of red bow ties, stripy waistcoats and gold-lapelled dinner jackets to get well and truly “chateaued” while consuming a ten-bird-roast and awaiting a local prostitute (Charlotte Lucas).
The evening develops as an orgiastic ritual of humiliation involving their jovial pub host (Daniel Ryan) and his waitress daughter Rachel (Fiona Button), who is studying languages at Newcastle (“You’d need to, there” says one of the wags). The climactic horror is the toff equivalent of the baby-stoning scene in Edward Bond’s Saved; this is a classic Royal Court play with a view from the other end of the telescope.
Lyndsey Turner’s superb production makes great use of a capella songs (and the toreador’s march from Carmen) to cover scene changes and heighten the raucous mood, which is enhanced with cunning beauty by Paule Constable’s lighting and includes cross fades to the be-wigged founding members of the club in a dissolving portrait.
That continuity is expressed in the scenes that book-end the dinner in an oak-panelled London club where a Tory grandee (Simon Shepherd) first encourages his nephew (Joshua McGuire, a new Tom Hollander) to maintain the Riot’s standards of excess and finally fingers Alistair (who should be wearing a tie) as the sort of chap they can ease out of trouble with the law and into a top job, perhaps even the top job.
Tom Mison as the secret banker, Henry Lloyd-Hughes as a Greek rich kid (he’s arranged a post-prandial group outing to Reykjavik) and the extraordinary David Dawson as a febrile poet of the right also shine in a hand-picked cast that do wonderful injustice to the play of the year so far and a fantastic Court follow-through to Jerusalem and Enron.
Given that Cameron, Osborne and indeed Clegg have joined Boris in positions of power, this either proves Laura Wade's flaky, paranoid conspiracy theory or that Posh had absolutely no effect on the electorate - probably the latter judging by the demographic of the audience. Students of all classes and sexes have always spent their university years getting wasted; then they grow up under the pressure of loans, mortgages, jobs and families. For all its faults as a basic premise, Posh is well constructed, brilliantly performed and frequently very funny. However, it should not be taken seriously by anyone other than deluded class warriors like Ed Balls or Michael Coveney - even Michael Billington saw through it. Perhaps we can now look forward to a Royal Court season on the hypocritical venality and corruption of the Blair government or the bullying incompetence of Brown . . . or perhaps not. - David Baxter
22 May 10
Some excellent performances and an unsettling (and slightly overlong) insight into another world that, thankfully, is alien to me. David Dawson's performance is exquisite - Gareth James is spot-on - he's 'one to watch' and I told him so at the Stage Door after the show. If he's not up for a few awards over the next year or so, I'll be amazed. - Andrew B
18 May 10
Great stuff! And even better to see the professional critics backing away from their right wing associations. - coral
30 Apr 10
Very well acted and with a chilling finale... needs cutting in the first act as it does ramble which gives an impressionistic view of the drunkeness which is unlikely to be deliberate!
The singing is very slick and funny ....
We are unsure where the play is going for a large part of it as the satire is not strong and the atmosphere indulgent for the first part... then the play turns on anyone who might think this is simply hooray light comedy.
The publican is a great role and played excellently. His relationship with his daughter is the one humanising element in the play. - sophia hughes
24 Apr 10
Somehow the reviews led me to believe I was in for a raucous satire, so I was very surprised to find this play so disturbing, with a positively chilling final scene. An Oxford University dining society (think Bullingdon Club) is meeting in the private room of an out-of-town gastropub, their penchant for trashing their venues (but paying the full cost, as if this means it’s OK) having been rumbled in the city. The power struggle to depose the current weak president leads to one trying to prove his point by menu choices, another by hiring a prostitute and a third by organising a post-dinner outing to Reykjavik (good timing, there!) in Dad’s private plane. As the evening progresses, wine is consumed, rituals are observed, behaviour declines and underlying attitudes emerge. It’s a very cleverly structured play, because it leaves you to make connections and consider what the consequences of these attitudes are. In my case, it explained much of the arrogance of the last few years where our society has been threatened by people who think they have rights to rule and rights to exploit. This is what was so devastating for me, and the ending - which I won’t reveal - is both chilling and depressing in its believability. The acting is uniformly excellent, with David Dawson - fast becoming the one to watch in his generation – following The Old Vic’s Entertainer, Chichester’s Nicholas Nickleby and Lyric Hammersmith’s Comedians with another terrific performance and Leo Bill a thrillingly vicious toff. Anthony Ward’s extraordinary lifelike set makes you feel like a fly on the wall rather than a member of an audience, but most importantly two young women – playwright Laura Wade and director Lyndsey Turner – have put up a mirror to a small but very real and powerful part of our society in an entertaining but thought-provoking and revealing way without preaching. After Jerusalem and Enron, this feels like the third in a state-of-the-nation/world trilogy and another theatrical feast. - Gareth James
24 Apr 10
Its only merits seem to me to be the claustrophobic staging and the cast of very obviously talented young actors (sadly wasted), but apart from that I struggled to see where the writer was going with it and perhaps she had the same problem too because she does rambled on somewhat and at 2¾ hours it was an even greater struggle maintaining ones concentration. Perhaps, because it's loosely based on the notorious Bullingdon Club the RC felt it would give added relevance to the plot? Several prominent Tories, David Cameron and George Osbourne to name but two, are former members. (Yet another good reason I suppose to vote Lib-Dem). Ha!
- rds
22 Apr 10
I loved every moment of this play - because it attacks the Tories and sends up the stupid club that Dave and George and Boris used to belong to. Yes, I know I should be objective and judge it purely as 'a play' but that would be unfair to the author and the Royal Court who clearly want to embarrass the Opposition, and Good Luck to them. I suspect the low star ratings below are mainly due to the play's politics which is fair enough, but I understand it's a sell-out at the theatre so clearly audiences want to see the Tories trashed, as I do. Surely it will follow Enron and Jerusalem to the West End and deservedly so as it's a play for Our Time. (OK, as a play I'd give it 3 stars but as a phenomenon I give it 5) - Mikey
21 Apr 10
Terrible play - funny occasionally yes, but dramatically and thematically inert. And intellectually lightweight. Characters are broad brush at best and plot is woefully predictable. Ideas aren't explored in any depth.
Would be alright if this sort of immature writing was on at a fringe venue, but the Royal court? Smacks of Emperor's New Clothes.
- John Bridge
20 Apr 10
I thought this was a really entertaining play, very funny and slick. The other 2 reviewers are clearly so up their own political backside they couldn't see the funny side of it. A great night out! - Lynne
19 Apr 10
Poor drama, boring and smug. Wade is either poking fun at this sort of ugly soicety or revealing in it for comice pleasure - however neither motives sit well as a reason to tell this story. This is not a theatre show its a wank. The best thing at the Royal Court in the recent months has been The Empire, if you want a real theatre piece choose this alternative. - Abram
The first theatre opened as The New Chelsea on 16 Apr 1870. Changed name to Belgravia. Re-opened as Royal Court 25 Jan 1871. Demolished in 1887. New theatre opened (current, slightly different site) 24 Sep 1888. Famous for supporting and commissioning new writing. Probably the first UK Theatre to regularly include their URL in advertising. Member of the Society of London Theatre. In 1996 the theatre closed for redevelopment, funded by the National Lottery. The refurbished theatre at Sloane Square re-opened in February 2000 including two theatres the 389 seat Jerwood Theatre Downstairs and the studio style Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.
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