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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Nick Curtis

Dealer’s Choice at the Donmar: savagely comic study of male compulsion

Brendan Coyle and Kasper Hilton-Hille in Dealer's Choice - (Helen Murray)

Lads lads lads! Patrick Marber’s 1995 debut play about an all-male poker school in a restaurant basement holds up extremely well as a savagely comic study of compulsion.

The first act steadily builds tension while the second makes the arcane rules and rituals of the game’s various permutations feel urgent and captivating. It also reminds you how blokey the culture was three decades ago.

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