Elia Kazan’s 1957 film about a petty criminal turned television folk hero seems like a prescient story about the dangers of populism foretold, its excavation in this musical adaptation timely in itself.
Lonesome Rhodes (Ramin Karimloo, a West End and Broadway stalwart) is scooped up from a jailhouse by roving reporter Marcia Jeffries (Anoushka Lucas, back at the Young Vic after her fabulous turn in Oklahoma!) and plonked in front of a microphone as the voice of an everyman American. His country singin’, straight talkin’ ways lead to sky-rocketing ratings and he becomes a “demigod in denim” with an ever-growing sway over public opinion.
