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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: John Tiffany.
Cast: Alan Cumming, Tony Curran, Paola Dionisotti, Ewan Hooper, Ralph Riach
Description: David Greig's new version of Euripides' Greek tragedy, starring Alan Cumming as Dionysus, who returns to Thebes with revenge on his mind. Directed by John Tiffany.
Trains: Tube: Hammersmith 
Phone: 0871221 1722
Website: www.lyric.co.uk
Email: enquiries@lyric.co.uk
Dolled up: Alan Cumming plays Dionysus as a hyper-queen
The excitement of the Edinburgh Festival sometimes drives those of us who are reviewers to balance-of-the-mind disturbances. I tenatively surmise such mental swings explain the rave reviews some colleagues gave to Alan Cumming's deeply ridiculous performance as the God Dionysus in Euripides's The Bacchae.
John Tiffany's unpersuasive production, played upon a bare, white-walled stage, ingeniously aspires to make this antique tragedy resonant and accessible for contemporary audiences. In what form can you render it today?
Judging by David Greek's fluent, though sometimes over-free version and the laughter attending its London first night, a black comedy approach is reckoned a way of making The Bacchae accessible. After all, its extravagant plot depends upon Dionysus, a mingler with humans, and raving Agave, who tears to pieces her adult son, Pentheus, then appearing with his severed head whose bloody features she fails to recognise.
I, though, feel this Greek tragedy, which warns both against surrendering to Dionysian frenzies of emotion and reliance upon logic and repression of feeling, works best as a timeless ritual of elemental cruelty and blood-lust.
Cumming's camp take upon Dionysus reveals the dangers of putting a flippant, contemporary gloss upon The Bacchae. Spectacularly flown from the flies upside down, suspended by his ankles, Cumming's Dionysus stands there in his gold dress, fright wig, mascared eyes and lip-sticked mouth. He looks a dead-ringer for a middle-aged, Scottish drag queen, all dolled-up for a man-hunt in gay bars and clubs. "Man?/woman ?" he questions with a knowing smirk, "It was a close-run thing."
To reduce Dionysus, as Cumming does, to a middle-aged, camping, hyper-queen with a wagging fore-finger and a bit of pique, outrages and cheapens Euripides's timeless, psychologically nuanced conception of the God as a beautiful, androgynous youth, an agent of destruction and revenge.
Dionysus's seduction of Tony Curran's tense, tight-suited Pentheus, persuaded to slip into female disguise to spy upon the god's madly dancing followers, rises to soap operatic heights. The Bacchae chorus, singing and dancing in line with Euripides, become a decorous hot gospel choir swaying to Steven Hoggett's dull choreography and Tim Sutton's bland R'n'B score.
Paola Dionisotti's Agave's climactic appearance with Pentheus's head is redolent of a school sculpture teacher taking a queer turn. An ancient tragedy sadly camped down and out.
• Until 22 Sept (08700 500 511).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
I thought the play was amazing. It lost nothing at all from the original and in fact clarified for me many of the more arcane areas. I think Nicholas is being a 'grumpy old man'. This was a vibrant, exciting and thoughtful new look at a classic work written in Euripides' final years but when he was at the height of his powers. This new production should electrify a new audience and hopefully send them off to become acquainted with the original.
- Vanessa Mackenzie, Thatcham, England
Oh loosen up Nicholas. Is there any contemporary take on an old play that you actually like? Or must it always be Shakespeare in doublet and hose and Greek tragedy in togas and laurels? Greek drama is, frankly, camp - as Cumming recognises. What you want is a sexless nineteenth century take on the classics which has long been in need of revision. I'm sure an ancient Greek audience would have recognised the style Cumming has adopted over the dried out fossilised version that would tickle your fancy.
- Ross Todhunter, London, UK
