"Elegantly profane language can’t disguise undergraduate-level humour and an incoherent mess of a script"
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“...the show – an 80-minute divertissement – joins the tottering pile of theatrical attempts to roast Johnson’s reputation only to encounter the usual problem that an air of bumbling buffoonery is baked into his shtick; yet another caricature feeds into his knack for self-mythologising.”
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“The satire is cruel, zany and one-sided...It’s strange to see this when the Covid inquiry is grinding through the minutiae. Ianucci’s case for the prosecution tries too hard to hammer home its points. But you have to admire its Hogarthian venom.”
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“It’s all beautifully done, but perhaps it really is true that we are living in a time beyond satire. This stage incarnation makes you smile, when the real world makes you want to weep.”
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“ ‘Pandemonium’ is a Covid-era political satire that feels miserably ponderous and out of date, even without the cumbersome references to greats like Milton, Pope, and Shakespeare...’Pandemonium’ feels like a lockdown project, a distraction from the monstrous, horrifying waste of life and resources the past three years have brought.”
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“Truth be told, the show is a little rough around the edges but that ultimately adds to its charm. As a new work, it has no shortage of potential though currently feels unfinished in its current form. I have no doubt this will continue to improve and look forward to following it on its journey. You may not find yourself quite having a party watching ‘Pandemonium’… though you can always lie and say you did.”
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“This has the silliness, but there’s a problem with the satire. You do wonder whether the events of the last few years - global pandemic meets power-fixated goons, with hilarious consequences etc - are too absurd to satirise...And besides all that, it doesn’t go far enough. Too much of the sixth-form sketch show about it. Yes they all end up writhing in the fires of hell, but somehow it’s not satisfying to see them meet their fates in an imaginary underworld.”
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“It’s all done in 80 minutes or so, but it’s noticeable that the laughs come more frequently and more loudly in the first half of the show rather than the second...Ultimatley, it's short on the biting cruelty it needs to skewer its targets with sufficient precision and venom in order to take its place...in the pantheon of political satire.”
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