Posh review, Duke of York's

Supper echelons

Posh first played at The Royal Court during a general election that saw two members of the Bullingdon Club, already represented by Boris Johnson at London's helm, move into numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street. Much has happened since then and our posh boys are currently making U turns and back flips with a consistency that demands, but fails to elicit, humility. A single viewing of Posh puts their confusing, contradictory behaviour into context.

Laura Wade has necessarily updated her play. It feels much sharper.  Her boys belong to The Riot Club, enjoying a reunion after burning down an eating establishment a year earlier. They are a compelling, odd-ball assortment of the stupendously rich scions of the stupendously rich. As befits those with public school and Oxford educations, the language is glorious - pithy observations and cutting social commentary during infantile drinking games that lead to planned and wanton hooliganism. The trick is that you half love these fools even as you utterly loathe them, and it's hard to quell the suspicion that all young men would enjoy the opportunity for wanton destruction if there wasn't the threat of arrest.

The action is punctuated by witty raps. The cast is terrific. As alcohol takes its effect, paintings are ripped and furniture smashed and a huge pile of £50 notes deposited to cover the subsequent refurbishment - sufficient compensation too, apparently, for the emotional and personal humiliations heaped upon their hosts. In this case, the landlord's daughter is also the butt of their lewdness and asked for personal services when the hired prostitute refuses to service all ten club members. It is awful and funny - until things go very seriously wrong.

In conclusion: Wade's cold conclusion is that the decent are viewed as cowards and the most cruel singled out as future leaders. Lyndsey Turner's direction makes an electric script crackle, as does James Fortune's musical direction.

References
Tickets, Duke of York's Theatre
Henry Hitchings review in The Evening Standard