14 December 2023

Pandemonium at Soho Theatre

Pandemonium at Soho Theatre had immediate appeal thanks to the names Armando Iannucci (illustrious cv) and Patrick Marber (another illustrious cv and a local lad too) so way back in August I booked my Xmas treat with seat G7 for a knock-off £25 (old gits discount).

Having booked it I forgot all about it.

Come the day I got a text message from Soho Theatre sending me my tickets for the show that afternoon and I quickly changed my plans! These included an early lunch, a couple of tubes to Tottenham Court Road and a quick pint in the theatre bar beforehand.

Pandemonium, as the poster skilfully suggests, is a play about the Covid pandemic and the Boris Johnson led government's woeful handling of it. There was a little prologue on the Brexit referendum, which gave Johnson's career a big boost, and we started with the two articles he wrote, one supporting leave and one supporting remain.

Clearly a lot of easy comedy targets in that scenario and safe territory for a play.

Pandemonium was more that that. For a start it played heavily with Shakespeare memes like rhyming couplets. The two articles became "To leave, or not to leave" and the scene was set.

In an hour and a half we met all of the key players from that era, even Liz Truss, and these were all brought to life by a cast of just five.  

The humour was relentless and all the well designed and executed theatry bits made Pandemonium an intelligent show, not just a funny one.

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