Posh boys run riot in a night dissecting power and privilege
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?
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.
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