Pandemonium – Soho Theatre, London (LAST CHANCE TO SEE)

Armando Iannucci’s take on the (mis)handling of the pandemic by the British government, Pandemonium takes on topical satire with a group of faux-Jacobean players.

Boris: God’s Gift to Comedy?

And so, the first Salterton Arts Post of the year looks back to the past. Not the far-off past we sometimes like to explore here on the blog. But the recent past: the COVID-19 pandemic. Pandemonium comes with some serious comedy weight behind it. It’s written by Armando Iannucci, writer of The Thick of It and creator of Veep and Alan Partridge amongst other projects. And the director is Patrick Marber, a frequent Iannucci collaborator.

The premise for Pandemonium is simple yet funny. In the style of a Jacobean acting troupe (the Pandemonium Players), five actors bring to life the story of Boris Johnson and his cronies. A sort of morality tale, if you will. Only it’s never quite Boris and cronies. Instead we have Orbis Rex, convinced he is literally divinely ordained to rule. There’s Richer Sooner, his diminutive Chancellor. Less Trust, who spouts nonsense ideas until challenged. Or Dominant Wrath, Noddin’ Doggies – you get the idea.

With these characters in charge, Albion must attempt to slay the dragon that is COVID-19. Paul Chahidi takes on the role of Orbis, blustering and weak. The other four actors (Faye Castelow, Debra Gillett, Natasha Jayetileke and Amalia Vitale) split the remaining roles between them, a quick costume change helping to distinguish who is who. Vitale is a standout, she has just the right sort of deadpan commitment to pull off Matt Hancock as an animated pile of slime or Liz Truss melting like a Wicked Witch when asked the simplest of questions. The jokes come thick and fast, and always at the expense of those (formerly or currently) in power.

Topical Comedy, After the Fact

There were things I thought worked very well about Pandemonium, and other aspects I found less successful. Let’s start with the good, shall we? As I said above, there are plenty of jokes, many really very funny. The events of the pandemic often seemed so ridiculous you couldn’t make them up, but Iannucci pushes them to even further extremes for comic effect. The faux-Jacobean structure also works well. That this was more or less the time of another great plague allows for some excellent backdrop imagery. But the key point is that this style is familiar enough to us that we know to expect a clear moral viewpoint, occasional divine intervention, and the wrong’uns getting their comeuppance at the end.

But this cathartic ‘happy’ ending (Orbis and pals being dragged to hell) brings me on to what I thought was less successful in Pandemonium. Which is to say, I wasn’t too clear what it was for. On the one hand, the timing is quite good as some of these events are back in the public eye thanks to the current enquiry. On the other hand, Pandemonium relies on the audience having a good memory of what happened at the time, and attracts a fairly self-selecting audience who have an interest already in such events. If I polled them, I bet a majority would have followed John Crace’s satirical Guardian column at the time. So why come back and watch a fictionalised version, with a satisfying outcome we’re unlikely to see in real life?

Ultimately I see Pandemonium as a timely reminder of just how bad the handling of events was. The arrogance, the eternal in-fighting, and the poor decision making. Iannucci never strays too far from a reminder of the human cost of all this. It’s the serious, compassionate core at the heart of the biting satire. So if you are that self-selecting audience, why not head to the Soho Theatre to see Pandemonium while it’s on? Perhaps a fictional cathartic ending is better than none at all.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5

Pandemonium on until 13 January 2024