SCANDAlToWN ZoRRo THe MusiCAl
★★★
Lyric Hammersmith until May 14 Tickets: 020 8741 6822
Mike Bartlett’s latest play is a ripe slice of clever-dickery in which he explores the chasm between millennial and boomer generations in the floridly satirical style of Restoration playwrights Wycherley and Congreve.
When young Phoebe Virtue (Cecilia Appiah) travels to London to find her brother Jack (Matthew Broome), she is shocked to discover that he has embraced the debauched life of a hedonistic libertine.
Disguised as a man, she is lured into his cynical social circle and finds her own virtue at risk.
Meanwhile, impoverished posho Lady Susan Climber (Rachael Stirling, magnificently louche) is being schooled in the use of social media to become an ‘influencer’ by Hannah
Tweetwell (Aysha Kala).
Matters come to a head at a Netflix masked ball where many of the characters arrive in similar costumes, causing all manner of identity confusion and resulting in cross-gendered liaisons.
It’s all highly amusing up to a point. But, although Bartlett takes aim at many targets – woke sanctimony, boomer self-interest, political hypocrisy, social aspirations, ‘deluded’ optimism, the rejection of motherhood, etc – he runs out of narrative ammunition long before the corny denouement, having inflicted little more than flesh wounds.
Safe satire is no satire at all. The calculated artifice extends to the painted sets and the flamboyant costumes as well as the language and performance which includes an entirely unerotic sex scene in silhouette. As a theatrical pastiche, it is a triumph. But it’s a triumph of stylisation over content.
Charing Cross Theatre until May 28 Tickets: 08444 930 650
Half Scarlet Pimpernel and half Batman, Zorro was the great heroic icon of my childhood. The musical adaptation of the pulp fiction character’s story premiered in 2008 and this revival is completed with music by flamenco popularisers The Gipsy Kings, played live on-stage by a rollicking band of actor/musicians.
Set in early 19th century California which was under Spanish rule, it is the story of Don Diego de la Vega (Benjamin Purkiss) and his older brother Ramon (Alex Gibson-Giorgio). When Diego is sent to Spain to prepare himself for political office, his jealous brother Ramon makes himself dictator following their father’s apparent death.
The woman they both love, Luisa (Paige Fenlon) goes in search of Diego to bring him back to sort things out but finds he has abandoned his studies for the life of a party-loving vagabond.
Along with his band of gypsies, he returns and becomes the masked avenger Zorro to right wrongs and dispense justice.
It’s all great Boys’ Own stuff, pumped up with primitive flamenco dancing and Spaghetti Western styling. The songs are competently sung by the enthusiastic cast, of whom the Carmen-esque Inez (Phoebe Panaretos) and hapless, lovelorn Sergeant Garcia (Marc Pickering) shine out.
The small stage with the audience ranged on either side seems cramped – careful with that flaming sword, Don Diego! – but doesn’t inhibit the hip-swirling, arm-flinging, blade-wielding antics.
The central dance of women lamenting their lot is powerfully executed.
Loose though it is, there is much fun to be had from the camp antics in this raucous, barnstorming production.