POSH
Went to see POSH by Laura Wade at the Royal Court. It’s still in previews but, even so, the run is pretty much sold out. Possibly due to the fortuitous timing with the general election. More likely the fact that the play is stuffed to the gills with a hot young cast. Read eyecandy to the max.
POSH is based on a evening’s dining with the Riot Club, a not very distant relative of the Bullingdon Club. I don’t really want to spoiler the plot here in case someone is randomly reading and about to go but the first half is fast-paced, profane and hilarious and the post-interval gradually less funny and more sinister. The opening scenes work best if only because the second half wears its politics on its sleeve so very obviously. The climax also relies on a collective collusion by all the club members that I couldn’t quite buy into. Was there really not one person who would place basic humanity higher than self? Perhaps, and RL provides plenty of examples that says not, but there were enough sympathetic glimpses of depth in the characters shown earlier to make it difficult to accept the premise whole-heartedly.
Stand-out performances for me were Tom Mison as James Leighton-Masters, Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Dimitri and Leo Bill as Alastair Ryle.
Anyways, the two and three-quarter hours running time flew past. In the intermission we stood on the balcony and watched a very drunk man in a white linen* shirt and trousers being escorted out of the The Botonist across the Square. In the way of the totally wasted but still standing he simply could not leave it alone but kept coming back to argue and be manhandled out once more. Eventually a taxi came and took him away still protesting.
Last word on POSH. I think it’s a Royal Court syndrome but this play attracted possibly the broadsheetiest theatre audience I’ve ever been amongst in that North London BBC socialist Waitrose long-haul organic type of way. So it was very much one set of clichés mocking another. Yers, I do include myself in the stereotype. Party on.
Second last word. There’s bonus singing too! Catch it if you can.
(* Fashion note : Yes, it was obvious even from a distance. Only pure linen crumples and hangs in quite that distinctive way. That’s Sloane Square for you.)