About the Show

A new staging reframes a psychiatric ward’s power struggle through Bromden’s long-suppressed voice.

Set within a psychiatric institution, this staging follows Chief Bromden, a long-silent patient whose perspective reveals the rigid systems governing the ward. His quiet routine is disrupted by the arrival of Randle P. McMurphy, a gambler whose refusal to conform challenges the authority of Nurse Ratched and alters the lives of the patients around him. As conflicts escalate, Bromden begins to reclaim a voice the institution has worked to suppress.

Directed by Clint Dyer, this production draws from Ken Kesey’s novel and features Aaron Pierre and Giles Terera in leading roles. Dyer’s previous work includes Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, while Pierre’s screen credits include The Underground Railroad and Terera is known for Hamilton (West End).

Critic Reviews (9)

"It is an intense 2 hours and 35 minutes on the ward, but Dyer has created something fresh and provoking."
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"The show is a full-on onslaught with little modulation, compelling but exhausting. And throughout there’s the creeping awareness that Kesey and Wasserman partly romanticise mental illness and also use it for comic purposes."
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"It’s a really interesting idea, with a mostly great cast, of a historically significant play that I can’t imagine getting revived again any time soon."
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"The added racial charge aside, this fittingly intense, non-conformist production delivers a chilling reminder of the perennial cost of dissent."
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"This play may be uncomfortable viewing at times, yet it's exhilarating, too."
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"In theory, Clint Dyer’s Old Vic revival of the 1963 stage adaptation should be bringing that same subversive energy into a new century...Unfortunately, the result feels regressive, not rebellious."
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"This is a staging that grapples with the material and strives to reshape it, and while the play itself now seems hokey, its message of freedom and self-determination still holds power. "
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"His [Dyer's] crackling version sees the play's cruelties through their eyes – but it's very much the male gaze."
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