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Just another unhinged celebrity
PETER MASON appreciates the songs and spectacle but misses attention-grabbing intrigue in Sarah Ruhl’s adaptation of the US movie
Ramin Karimloo and Anoushka Lucas in A Face in the Crowd
[Ellie Kurttz]
The Bard stands with the Reformers of Peterloo, and their shared genius in teaching history with music and song
SUE TURNER is fascinated by a book that researches who the largely immigrant workforce were that built the Empire State
MARIA DUARTE and MALC McGOOKIN review Sirat, The Testament of Ann Lee, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, and All You Need Is Kill
STEVE ANDREW recommends a Marxist analysis of the long chains of production that global corporations exploit
MARY CONWAY relishes the period detail but misses the drama in this unsatisfactory dramatisation of the subjugated life of George Eliot
IAN SINCLAIR welcomes a mainstream scholar to the ranks of left-wing critique of US foreign policy
A Face in the Crowd
Young Vic, London
THERE’S not a great deal wrong with this musical adaptation of the 1957 US film of the same name: the two leads are excellent, the music and lyrics by Elvis Costello are a cut above the ordinary and the sets and costumes are at times dazzling.
What it lacks, though, is a storyline that offers any attention-grabbing intrigue.
From the off it’s clear what will happen to the two main characters, Marcia Jeffries (Anoushka Lucas), an ambitious small-town radio broadcaster, and Lonesome Rhodes (Ramin Karimloo), a semi-hobo songwriter and storyteller whom she discovers languishing in the county jail.
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