Great Britain
National Theatre
Lyttelton Theatre
June 2014
Haymarket Theatre
September 2014
Richard Bean’s fast and furious new play is an anarchic satire about the press, the police and the political establishment. Billie Piper plays Paige Britain, ambitious young news editor of The Free Press, a tabloid newspaper locked in a never-ending battle for more readers.
Selected Reviews
Written with real verve… a production by Nicholas Hytner that is as well marshalled as a military campaign.
The Guardian
There is plenty to enjoy in Nicholas Hytner’s vigorous and charming production.
The Arts Desk
Written with real verve… a production by Nicholas Hytner that is as well marshalled as a military campaign.
The Guardian
Nicholas Hytner’s production is pacy and busy. Giant video screens dominate Tim Hatley’s design, relaying snippets from other papers — no prizes for recognising the Daily Wail or the Guardener — and as the images flash past we experience the fluidity of the news agenda as well as its limits.
Bean’s satire is deliberately grotesque. The cartoonish elements are richly enjoyable, laced with political incorrectness, yet they’re interleaved with some altogether more subtle jokes. Even if the show feels a little too broad and could do with a trim, it’s barbed, dense and very funny.
Evening Standard
Directed with terrific niftiness by Nicholas Hytner, the play weaves between politically incorrect humour and something darker and more troubling as it raised awkward questions about the divisions between honourable and disgusting journalistic muck-raking. It suggests that, while a great many of our institutions may be found wanting at the moment, the NT is on exhilarating and exemplary form
The Telegraph
This is a big play, and Nicholas Hytner gives it one of his big productions, with huge video screens acting as stage “wipes” while showing mocked-up headlines and TV news clips, even supposed YouTube mash-ups of the hapless police commissioner (a rare character with no obvious biographical basis) and his repertoire of foot-in-mouthisms.
The Financial Times
Creative
Team
Team
Writer
Richard Bean
Director
Nick Hytner
Set Designer
Tim Hatley
Video Design
59 Productions
Lighting Designer
Neil Austin
Sound Design
Paul Arditti
Composer
Grant Olding
59 TEAM
Senior assistant designer
Akhila Krishnan
Animation
Ninoslav Vrana
Dan Radley-Bemnnett
Assistant Designer
Gareth Damian Martin
Programmer and associate designer
Nick Simmons
Assistant programmer and automation tracking
Dan Murfin
Live Action Shoot
Camera Assistant/CIT
Chris Belcher
Producer
Akhila Krishnan