The 2003 premiere of Martin McDonagh’s jet-black melding of fairytales, fascism and in-your-face offensiveness is one of my top 10 favourite productions. Matthew Dunster’s revival, featuring an impressive Steve Pemberton and a watchable but emotionally off-key Lily Allen doesn’t quite match that memory.
Maybe my tolerance for the ironic use of hate-speech, and for writers writing about writing, has ebbed. Anyway: this remains an audacious, wickedly funny work that implicates and wrong-foots the audience throughout. It took nerve to write it, and it takes a strong stomach to watch it.
