HERE WE ARE Lyttelton, SE1

AFFLUENZA APOCALYPSE

As Aubrey de Mandeville places it within the nice Antrobus books, “God, here’s a strange lozenge-shaped affair!” Buñuel meets Monty Python, courtesy of the immortal Sondheim in his Assassins temper. Had to be seen. Hard to overlook.

Stephen Sondheim’s final work – lovingly completed after his loss of life by his collaborator David Ives, and directed by Joe Mantello with fervent love – relies partly on Bunuel’s surreal satire “The Discreet charm of the Bourgeoisie” , and his avenging-angel fantasy movie concerning the super-rich. But don’t fear, most whether it is roaring good enjoyable: a vengeful parable through which the world’s insouciantly pampered wealthy attempt to meet up for brunch, say ridiculous issues (Marinne is having her canine cloned as a result of it’s such a faff shifting it from Connecticut to Switzerland and the Maldives so she wants one in every dwelling). The group of 5 get thwarted in comedian sequence and, tellingly, in methods extra acquainted to the world’s poorest, like wanting a easy drink of water and never getting it, or having a meal interrupted by the abrupt arrival of the navy.

Our antiheroes are Leo the hedgefunder and his daffily optimistic spouse Marianne (Rory Kinnear and Jane Krakowski, who will get the loveliest tunes and wears a negligée throighout). Then there’s Paolo Szot as a Latino ambassador, Jesse Tyler Ferguson as a beauty surgeon snd his showbiz agent associate (Martha Plimpton), plus Marianne’s indignant teenage sister Fritz, who needs a Communist revolution or, ideally, the tip of the world.

The first half is pure enjoyable: greeted at The Everything Cafe with a cooing “your enabler will be here momentarily” the 5 are supplied an enormous menu however instantly met with a magnificently operatic aria from the waiter about how every thing is off tonight. He then shoots himself, and clearly they don’t care. On to the Bistro a la mode (“French deconstructionist” delicacies) the place the identical occurs solely in the next register and with a corpse in tthe private-dining room. Then to the Osteria the place a Colonel from Homeland Security arrives, full with a squaddie who falls for leftie Fritz. Still no meals , so on to the magnificently gilded Embassy with Ambassador Santicci, the place rhey encounter a bishop in full rig who’s gone off God – what with all of the famines and struggling – and wonders if any of them may give him a job (that’s humorous, the super-rich are all the time surrounded by folks wanting jobs). There’s a ponytailed English butler referred to as Windsor, who I feel could also be Satan. Or not.

That’s all in a remarkably grand set by David Zinn, gilt curlicues, leatherbound books and panelling. In this our delighted friends lastly eat and are seen disposed, as Act2 begins, for all of the world like a 17c courtroom portray. Oh sure, the references right here right here to be truffled-for by the cognoscenti whereas vastly amusing the lots. Good outdated Sondheim. As for the songs, which fade out early within the second half, they’re simply as we anticipated and desired of the grasp: hyperliterate blasts of fast wit rising sometimes to an exhilarating shriek.

But the purpose is the wealthy folks can’t get out. Repeatedly the fourth wall, like a force-field, sees them beginning to go away the luxurious scene and failing; they calm down for a sleepover , flopped round like youngsters;. There’s a wonderful dream sequence the place a sure monster offers Krakowski the final large romatic second of the present (she’s a deal with all via, crooning “I like things to shine, I like things to glow” and fondling the velvet upholstery). And within the morning progressively the fact of the lure comes over all of them . A bit too progressively, tbh: an hour or so later my straw ballot of scuttlers within the Jubilee line jnderpass agreed that Sondheim himself, who hardly ever outstayed his welcome, would have taken some sharp scissors to the second half.

But all of us loved a hellscape of sound, flashing lights, uneasy choreography, and transient love passages between Fritz and the squaddie ; it retains the motion going as they drink out of the flower vase and make kindling of the furnishings. And there could have been a second of actual profundity at one level between the bishop and Marianne. Or presumably not. Jean-Paul Sartre seeped to into the creation too, to maintain Bunuel firm: “hell is other people”, Huis Clos, all that. And hell, we’ve all been in events once we yearned to get out. But I did take pleasure in Kinnear the hedge-funder’s rant at trust-fund younger Fritz, saying that her radicalism was similar to her fabourite burgers, “pink around the edges” .

nationaltheatre.org.uk to 28 June