Posh

Laura Wade's depiction of wealth and privilege is savagely funny, but it's undercut by an observation as coolly sharp as cut glass: there's a reason why the upper-class dolts she portrays behave as if they and their kind run Britain - it's because, on the whole, they do. And with an election looming, her play is a timely warning against making that inequality manifest by handing the keys of No 10 to a former member of just such an elitist institution as Wade and director Lindsey Turner show us, in hideous, braying full flow.

At a rural gastropub, the Riot Club - an Oxford University dining society closely related to the real-life Bullingdon - meets for its regular huzzah, at which it is customary to get absolutely 'chateaued' before wrecking the premises. But this evening, all is not blue-blooded brotherly love. Discontented members, believing that the club is failing to live up to its notoriety, are angling to seize its presidency from the current incumbent. Guy (Joshua McGuire) tries to curry favour by devising a menu of repulsive excess, Harry (Harry Hadden-Paton) hires 'a prozzer' and Dimitri (Henry Lloyd-Hughes) arranges a post-prandial jaunt to Reykjavik. Cracks in the camaraderie appear: Greek Dimitri is on the receiving end of racist jibes, a new boy is pilloried for his 'Brideshead'-ish teddy bear - 'It's a family heirloom!' he protests - and another's sexual confusion erupts in an ugly act of macho posturing involving the pub landlord's daughter. And all of them seethe with resentment at what they regard as the erosion of respect due to them as a birthright, and at a modern world in which their family's country piles must be thrown open to plebeian visitors and poor Mummy, decamped to the Knightsbridge flat, despairs at the influx of Arabs in the area.

The action is framed by two scenes in which Guy's Tory MP godfather (Simon Shepherd), ensconced in a gentleman's club that is essentially a grown-up version of the Riot, outlines the importance of allegiance and the way in which the old school tie binds the privileged together, ensuring that they collaborate to protect and perpetuate their position of power. The play is a little overlong, its build towards violent climax inevitable. But as grotesque as Turner's superbly acted production may be, at its core it's also chillingly lifelike and horribly pertinent. Nastily effective.