Bacchae reviews at the National Theatre – Starring James McArdle, Clare Perkins, Ukweli Roach & Sharon Small

"Headspinningly smart and hugely entertaining"

"Nima Taleghani’s debut production sketches this dark, heightened world with wit and invention"

"It’s a headspinningly smart, visually spectacular, and hugely entertaining opening move from new National Theatre artistic director Indhu Rubasingham."

"As bacchic den mother Vida, a winningly frank Clare Perkins"

"Taleghani’s approach here is to turn Thebes into a kind of stand-in for oppressive states everywhere. Like Afghanistan under the Taliban, women are banned from laughing in public. Like the UK, protest groups are liable to be declared terrorist organisations."

"Rubasingham sketches this dark, heightened world with wit and invention."

"Still, for all his play’s delicious bloodthirstiness and queer excess, Taleghani also explores the pressures within protest movements with surprising subtlety."

"After all the intricacy that’s gone before, the Bacchae’s metatheatrical ending lands swiftly and slightly unsatisfyingly."

"This is full-bodied theatre, rich with invention, intriguing themes and visual sumptuousness. Drink deep and fall under its spell."

"Indhu Rubasingham launches National Theatre tenure with new-gen rap tragedy"

"This eccentric take on Euripedes by Nima Taleghani is a striking yet often frustrating opening statement"

"Indhu Rubasingham is throwing down the gauntlet by directing this mischievous and eccentric reworking of Greek tragedy."

"It is a bold, brash takeover with striking optics and energised performances. But just as the Artful Dodger seems like a misplaced reference within Euripidean tragedy, so the script often sounds off-key: unfocused, tonally untextured, its knockabout comedy smothering the emotional core of the play."

"Taleghani’s version brings to the fore the fear and suspicion of “foreignness” that creates a backdrop of anxiety in the original text."

"It seems inspired by the Jamie Lloyd school of storytelling (Taleghani starred in his scintillating rap version of Cyrano). The raps burst with verve and a speed of ideas but lack the sharpness, poetry and emotional power to make the satire soar. The humour is hit-and-miss"

"This is an accessible, entertaining, new-gen Bacchae but the joshing treatment is frustrating because so much in the original play chimes for our times"

"Rubasingham’s direction is nevertheless as polished as ever and the show has pace, with thrilling lighting by Oliver Fenwick"

"Pat on the Bacchae for National Theatre’s new director with flamboyant debut"

"Indhu Rubasingham’s first staging is radical but has a saving streak of psychological insight"

"It’s a relief to report that Rubasingham – the first person of colour and the first woman to run the NT – passes her high-pressure test in surprisingly flamboyant style (aided by a shifting set of giant slabs by designer Robert Jones), and, though it takes time to emerge, with a saving dollop of substance."

"Some people may develop an allergy to Taleghani’s loosely rhyming, militantly unstuffy way with words and fourth-wall breaking familiarity... But this version is clearly meant as a radical departure from the play’s last outing here – Peter Hall’s 2002 production"

"There’s a frisky gag a minute for much of the fleet first half but the neat trick is that the mood flips towards something soberingly horrific and psychologically insightful in the nick of time."

"Instead of being about revenge, it becomes a tragedy of thwarted reconciliation."

"This messy rap-infused riff on Euripides’s tragedy is a fun way to kick off Indhu Rubasingham’s National Theatre tenure"

"Arguably the entire point of the first play to be programmed at the National Theatre by its new boss Indhu Rubasingham comes around five minutes from the end... And if the hour and 40 minutes that precede this moment are messy, I’d say they are entertainingly messy."

"... colourful, irreverent and frequently goofy, its sillier moments reminded me of those hip hop Shakespeare plays that sometimes pop up at the Edinburgh Fringe"

"It’s fun to spend time with them, as they swear and argue and rage, but there’s the nagging sense that it’s not clear where their story is going. Frankly it also seems a bit unexpected that a male writer would be out to reclaim Bacchae as a feminist work. And that proves to be the case: this eventually proves to still be a story about two men."

"The other man in Pentheus, Agave’s son, played by James McArdle, an actor so absurdly good that he feels like he’s doing everyone a favour by being there in a role that’s quite light on stage time by his standards. It seems like he’s having a lot of fun regardless."

"There are swings and misses in Taleghani’s script.... There’s also the question as to whether it even works as a tragedy after all Taleghani’s fiddling, jokes, microsubversions and humanising of both Pentheus and Dionysus. I would say… no, it doesn’t"

"It’s not a staggering start for Rubasingham, but it has got the whole ‘ta da here I am’ thing out of her system in pretty diverting fashion."

"Half really cool, half really naff"

"The first play under new National Theatre Director Indhu Rubasingham is production of wild mood swings that ticks off issues but loses the plot"

"If it were a triumph, life would be easier; the National in safe hands, theatre saved. If it were a dud everyone could cluck and crow. Instead it’s both, and also everything in between. Refugees, feminism, gender, sexuality, dictators, set to rap and dance…this is a production of wild mood swings, mediated through a production whose beauty often outstrips its substance."

"Clare Perkins is their brilliantly ferocious, no-fucks-given leader Vida"

"... the political resonances have the subtlety of a fist to the face. That’s where the tone of the production starts seesawing, half really cool, half really naff. Updated in verse by actor Nima Taleghani (his debut play, remarkably) it’s a production that falls over itself not to seem stuffy."

"A brilliant James McCardle makes Pentheus a blustering impotent tyrant gleaming in military getup... Ukweli Roach is a captivating presence as Dionysos."

"... this aggravating script - Greek-tragedy-for-kids one minute, gags about anal the next, condescending but occasionally really beautiful - clings onto a magnificent production."

"The final minute is an incredible bit of writing where Perkins stands alone on stage and challenges us, and challenges Rubasingham, to work out what a national theatre should be."

"Unfocused debut"

"Rocky start to Indhu Rubasingham’s National Theatre reign nonetheless proves she’s committed to bold programming"

"It proves a big ask of the debuting Taleghani to write a version of one of the great tragedies for the National’s vast Olivier Theatre. While there’s certainly lyricism and gumption to his adaptation, much of which is written in verse, it’s a disjointed offering with add-ins that distract from the story. More confusingly, until its final grisly throes, too much effort is spent on making it funny."

"It opens promisingly with a striking image: designer Robert Jones sends the giant head of a white horse, streaked with blood, galloping towards the audience from above the stage... Shame, because the majority of what follows is visually pedestrian and told to us rather than shown (although unlike the Greeks, we’re not spared blood and gore by the end)."

"If this unfocused piece isn’t quite the impactful opener Rubasingham might have hoped for, it proves her commitment to bold programming nonetheless."

"A tragedy of blunders as leaden update falls flat"

"The actor Nima Taleghani’s update of Euripides’ tragedy at the National’s Olivier theatre is a crude and timid start for Indhu Rubasingham’s reign"

"This is the first time, in fact, that a debutant has taken over the Olivier stage. And after sitting through this travesty, I suspect it could well be the last. The actor Nima Taleghani’s update of The Bacchae, studded with ultra-crude, in-yer-face banter, is so leaden that it makes the average panto look like a treatise on existentialism."

"Sad to say, Taleghani’s text has none of the wit and subtlety of those two productions. Once the shock tactics fade — the casual use of “bitch” and “motherf***er” soon loses its sting — you’re left with a comedic storyline that’s dull and often confusing. Rubasingham’s staging is oddly pedestrian, too"

"Clare Perkins — who cut such a salty figure in the Chaucer project — certainly sparkles as Vida... But there’s nothing particularly regal about James McArdle’s Pentheus"

"... as Dionysos (Taleghani prefers that spelling of the god’s name) Ukweli Roach resembles a camp stand-up comic trying to work up some excitement in a near-empty club."

"A little more of Kate Prince’s percussive choreography would have been welcome; the dances add colour to DJ Walde’s inoffensive musical interludes."