Source : the age
Posh
Old Fitz
April 22. Until May 11
★★★★½
They wear their entitlement as effortlessly as their tailcoats. The young members of an Oxford University elite dining club gather for a night of food, wine and mayhem at a rural pub. Posh boys will be boys, right?
At an exclusive Oxford dining club, ten wealthy young men gather for a night of indulgence, revelry, and destruction. Credit: © Robert Catto / robertcatto.com
What begins as satire – and upper-class twats are easy targets – becomes increasingly malevolent in this dissection of how powerful networks are shaped and influence wielded.
The Riot Club at the centre of Laura Wade’s 2010 play is loosely based on the Bullingdon Club, an all-male Oxford student club known for lavish dinners and appalling behaviour. Former British prime ministers David Cameron and Boris Johnson are among its past members.
A dining table set with silverware and crystal dominates the carpeted stage and panelled walls. Soham Apte’s set is probably the Old Fitz’s most lavish.
A large cast on the tiny stage for most of the night is a challenge, even without the dining table. But this tightly choreographed piece directed by Margaret Thanos never falters.
As the 10 members arrive, two reveal how their college rooms have been trashed in initiation rituals. Another is brutalised for breaking the club’s code of silence. He’s forced to drink wine into which his band of boozy brothers have added pepper, snot and worse.
But they direct their worst behaviour towards outsiders – anyone lower down the food chain from themselves. The misogyny towards a call-girl (Scarlett Waters) is breathtaking.
They bully and patronise the pub’s working-class landlord (Mike Booth) and his waitress daughter (Dominique Purdue). When they discover their 10-bird main course roast is one bird short, they set the landlord in their sights, and the play takes a dark turn.
What’s striking is how the born-to-rule privilege of these wealthy young men is accompanied by a deep sense of grievance. They resent the public who pay to visit their stately homes – and keep a roof over their aristocratic heads. They want revenge on those they blame for eroding their power.
The play is not without problems. At nearly three hours, it overstates its case as boorish attitudes quickly established are repeated ad nauseam.
The dream-like appearance of the club’s bewigged founder Lord Riot (a flamboyant Charles Mayer) is an odd tonal twist. But his message is clear: trash anything you disapprove of and make the Riot Club great again.
With so many posh boys on stage, establishing different characters is tricky, despite fine work from the strong ensemble cast in this Queen Hades production. Notable was Roman Delo as the ambitious aspiring president Guy, Jack Richardson as the arch Hugo and Christian Paul Byers as the violent Alistair.
The piece is bookended by a former club member, now Tory politician (Mayer), who well knows how power is wielded and who utters the play’s most devastating line.
Thanos’s compelling direction produces a searing indictment of a filthy rich culture rotten and brutal to its core.
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