A Face in the Crowd | Short Review

Julia Rank
Monday, September 23, 2024

Ramin Karimloo delivers a true star performance as the nobody who charms the nation with his plain-speaking folksiness

Ramin Karimloo in A Face in the Crowd (Images credit: Ellie Kurttz)

Last year, Elvis Costello contributed music to the stage adaptation of Polish film Cold War at the Almeida Theatre, which was essentially a play with music added for atmosphere. A Face in the Crowd, based on Elia Kazan’s 1957 media satire, is much more of a fully-fledged musical that has some strong numbers and a more coherent musical identity with its country-folk style featuring sprinklings of 1950s pop pastiche.

Ramin Karimloo, a king of commercial musicals, makes his subsidised theatre debut as Larry ‘Lonesome’ Rhodes, a drifter turned media star with the power to sway elections. Karimloo delivers a true star performance as the nobody who charms the nation with his plain-speaking folksiness. The always nuanced Anoushka Lucas, as Marcia Jeffries, the producer who facilitates his rise, is excellent at conveying her complex feelings towards her creation.

However, Kwame Kwei-Armah’s production – his swansong as artistic director of the Young Vic – and Sarah Ruhl’s book don’t feel as urgent or laceratingly satirical as they could do, especially in light of current events. There’s much here to enjoy but somehow it ultimately somehow adds up to less than the sum of its parts in its eagerness to please.

A Face in the Crowd is playing until 9 November 2024 – for information and tickets, visit youngvic.org

You can read our full-page review in November issue of Musicals magazine, on sale 26 October – consider subscribing today!