Brixton Calling at Southwark Playhouse Borough review: a great London story, told with brio

This by-the-numbers story of how Simon Parkes leased a defunct cinema for £1 in 1983 and turned it into the mighty Brixton Academy is not a great piece of theatre. But it does tell a great London story with brio and appropriate dollops of live music from its two cast members.

Max Runham and Tendai Humphrey Sitima play Parkes, his wingman Johnny Lawes, all the other characters and a selection of keyboards and guitars to augment backing-track bursts of everything from Blondie to Springsteen to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Like its subject, Bronagh Lagan’s production has infectious charm and cocksure swagger, and it seems fitting it’s taking place in another rackety, converted south London space.