Soho theatre, London
Boris Johnson and his successors Less Trust and Riches Sooner are satirised in a superb political pantomime directed by Patrick Marber
Keenly anticipated since its summer announcement, Pandemonium finds the last seven years of British government dissected by two of the great satirists of the age, Armando Iannucci and his director, Patrick Marber. Told by the five-strong Pandemonium Players in cod-Jacobethan costume and blank verse, it traces the rise and fall of Boris Johnson from the moment he chose his Brexit side (“To be in, or not to be in …”) to his condemnation to hell in the wake of Partygate. On the one hand, it’s the hottest ticket in town. On the other – well, is “the Johnson-Truss-Sunak years retold in all their horrible glory” really any way to spend a spare evening?
My reservation with these dramatic-satirical renderings of Johnson and co (Boris the Third at the Edinburgh fringe last year is one example) is that they tend, if only by putting him centre-stage, to perpetuate the myth of his charisma and significance. Pandemonium does not make that mistake. It treats Johnson, correctly, as a small, weak man, awash in his delusions. His cronies – Riches Sooner, Less Trust, Matt Hemlock – don’t fare much better. There’s a sense in which Pandemonium is wish fulfilment, offering the public spectacle (more thoroughly and entertainingly than the Covid inquiry can) of a ruling class confronted with their squalor. In its own localised way, it’s the post-pandemic catharsis we’ve never yet had.
At Soho theatre, London, until 13 January
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