A Face in the Crowd

Kwame Kwei-Armagh’s swansong at the Young Vic is this ambitious new musical adaptation of the cult classic 1957 film of the same name. Written by US dramatist Sarah Ruhl with songs by the legendary new wave icon Elvis Costello, ‘A Face in the Crowd’ is the story of a charismatic drifter who is given a slot on a local radio station by an intrigued producer and ends up becoming a raging populist demagogue. Which sounds vaguely familiar… Heavyweight West End and Broadway star Ramin Karimloo – in what is surely his subsidised theatre debut – will play drifter Lonesome Rhodes, while Anoushka Lucas – breakout star of the Young Vic’s ‘Oklahoma!’ – will play Marcia Jeffries, the radio producer who takes a fateful chance on him.