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If I say that Rupert Goold’s revival of his hit electropop murder musical is full of surface gloss and chilly razzmatazz, I mean it as a compliment. Bret Easton Ellis’s original 1991 novel was a slashing satire on late-80s consumerist capitalism, as lived by psychotic Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman. This shiny, energetic, body-conscious production lands when greed is once again good and looksmaxxing misogynists are literally all the rage in the manosphere.
It’s the last show that Goold, a showman and a starmaker, will direct at the Almeida before leaving to run the Old Vic. A sweatily mesmerising Arty Froushan vaults confidently from reliable supporting player into the lead role played on screen by Christian Bale in Mary Herron’s 2000 film and by Matt Smith in Goold’s 2013 Almeida stage premiere. What could be more fitting?
