Theatre review: American Psycho

The Almeida will continue to have shows programmed in the Rupert Goold era running for the rest of this year, but for his final show there as director he does what Rufus Norris did when exiting the National, and revisits a hit musical he directed there just before taking on the Artistic Director job: Here that means American Psycho, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (book) and Duncan Sheik's (music and lyrics) adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' twisted satire of capitalism. Patrick Bateman (Arty Froushan) is the archetypal young Wall Street broker working in Murders and Executions (or is it Mergers and Acquisitions?) flashing the latest tech, fashions and products to show how well he's doing for himself. But for all that he's the go-to man at his firm for questions of 1980s etiquette, he always feels sure someone else is doing just that little bit better than him.

Theatre review: Pippin

I first saw Avenue Q long before I ever saw Pippin, so maybe that's why it's taken me until now to wonder if the former's recurring theme of Princeton searching for his Purpose is a deliberate pisstake of the latter, and the title character's wandering through the world in the conviction that there's a great meaning to his existence that'll reveal itself if he can just tick off all the mundane things other people do. In Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson's tuneful but demented musical "the mundane things" include ruling half of Europe, because it's (very) loosely based on the son of Charlemagne, who actually was called Pippin (well, Pepin, which is a bit more plausible as a Mediaeval French name.) At the start of the show he's just come back from years of study, but as heir to the throne Pippin (Ryan Anderson) thinks he should learn the ropes to succeed his father (Daniel Krikler.)