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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Lifestyle
Nick Curtis

A Face in the Crowd at Young Vic review: a brash and gaudy musical for the Trump age

Donald Trump Young Vic Elvis Costello Anoushka Lucas Ramin Karimloo Sarah Ruhl

Elvis Costello and playwright Sarah Ruhl have taken Elia Kazan’s unsubtle but prescient 1957 movie about the way the media creates monsters and turned it into a brash musical parable for the Trump age.

Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes is an Arkansas hobo who becomes a radio and TV star then a political kingmaker, but his plain-speaking common touch is built on lies, contempt and egotism. Today he’d have a podcast and a social media grift, peddling cryptocurrency and conspiracy theories.

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