By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2

WHEN? Tuesday 23 September, opens 24 September and runs through 1 November 2025 RUNTIME: 105 minutes (no interval)

Author Nima Taleghani (Romeo And Juliet, Duke Of York’s Theatre) is perhaps best known as gay teacher Mr Farouk in Netflix’s Heartstopper and with this his play becomes the 1st debut work on the Olivier Theatre stage.

• Read on for reasons including this is a flawed and irreverent take on a Greek classic which will make you laugh

Bacchae is a new play after Euripides based on the Greek tragedy about the myth of King Pentheus of Thebes and his mother Agave, who were punished by the god Dionysus – the king’s cousin – for rejecting his cult.

Taleghani’s reimagining sees the women of the Bacchae led by the fearless Vida given life by Clare Perkins speaking with an East London accent and chanting: ‘Who are yer?’ like a football hooligan as she introduces her fellow members of the chorus to us like Spice Girls in street language understood in UK 2025.

They dance and sing and include clipboard carrying administrator Dima, a marvellous comic turn by Amanda Wilkin (Otherland, Almeida), and have captured Sharon Small’s (Good, Harold Pinter Theatre) Agave as they plot to shake Thebes to its core and liberate its women subjugated by James McArdle’s (The Tragedy Of Macbeth, Almeida) short-sighted Pentheus.

Ukweli Roach’s (Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Almeida) Dionysus appears to be having more fun chewing the scenery than we’ve ever seen him before in any role as he leads the Bacchae in a plot to oust Pentheus while wearing a blingy gold outfit, gyrating suggestively and singing.

The music’s strong and draws on rap and hip hop and it should be no surprise that contributors including choreographer Kate Prince and composer DJ Walde worked on the similar sounding Sylvia at the Old Vic.

The Bacchae are violent and bewitch Agave slowly giving her a ferocious appetite which eventually turns into cannibalism leaving her feasting offstage on the body of a poor messenger including his penis, returning with what appears to be a severed toe in her mouth clutching a bloody arm.

The script is laugh-out-loud funny and it would be fair to say that the preview audience we saw this with was having a fantastic time but we felt there was too much going on and things occasionally felt quite chaotic.

Director Indu Rubasingham is also now National Theatre director and, if this is any indication of her leadership, we look forward to the continued attempt to speak to its audience in a language they would find most familiar about subject matter that is not immediately recognisable as contemporary.

We enjoyed the attempt to give Pentheus some humanity although never expected to see McArdle in a dress and up a tree, have wanted to see Perkins since her celebrated turn at the Kiln in Wife Of Willesden and thought she stole every scene she was in here.

Bacchae is a flawed and irreverent take on a Greek classic which will make you laugh while likely to please a younger audience ahead of traditionalists.

• Main pictures by Marc Brenner via Facebook courtesy National Theatre Tickets
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