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Young Vic_CREDIT_Philip Vile.jpg
© Philip Vile

Young Vic

This edgy Waterloo theatre has a formidable artistic reputation
  • Theatre | Private theatres
  • Waterloo
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Time Out says

The Young Vic more than lives up to its name, with its slick modern exterior, buzzing bar, and a forward-looking line-up that makes it feel metaphorically as well as literally miles away from London's fustier West End houses. Under current boss Kwame Kwei-Armah, who cut his teeth on the New York theatre scene, it's thriving, with a renewed focus on connecting with the Southwark community that surrounds it, and on championing works by people of colour.

Kwei-Armah is building on the legacy of the theatre's longtime artistic director David Lan, who stepped down in 2018 after 18 years in the job. During that time, he oversaw a major renovation which created the current box office area from an old butcher's shop (you can still see traces of the original tiles), spruced up the theatre's fully flexible 420-seater auditorium, and added two smaller studio spaces, the Maria and the Clare. And he presided over an eclectic programme with a striking international focus. 

The Young Vic's popular Cut bar and restaurant is perma-busy with crowds drawn by its bright, airy set-up and central location. But it's just the most public-facing part of the theatre's many efforts to get people through its doors. The Taking Part team puts on parallel productions devised by local residents, building on a community focus that's been present from the theatre's earliest days. It started life as a youth-focused offshoot of the National Theatre in 1969, then housed in the Old Vic down the road, and its current breeze-block building was hastily thrown up in 1970. It was only designed to last for five years, but after a full-on refurb and with an impressive artistic legacy to hold onto, it looks all set to last for another half century. 

Details

Address
66
The Cut
London
SE1 8LZ
Transport:
Tube: Waterloo
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What’s on

Ohio

4 out of 5 stars
This review is from the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Ohio transfers to the Young Vic.  The omens were always good for Ohio, which is produced by Fleabag and Baby Reindeer hitmaker Francesca Moody and had a transfer to the Young Vic nailed on months before the Fringe started.  It’s the work of Abigail and Shaun Bengson, aka indie folk duo the Bengsons, aka a band you probably haven’t heard of if you live over here because their oeuvre seems to largely consist of theatrical performance pieces that haven’t toured outside of the US… until now. I’m not going to pretend I know much more about them than the above paragraph but if I had to guess I’d venture that Ohio was intentionally devised with the object of introducing the duo to an overseas audience. It’s a potted history of the pair’s lives, albeit a dreamy, impressionistic one, starting with Shaun explaining how he lied to his son about the existence of an afterlife in order to cheer him up. It then moves through such subjects as the worm Abigail had as a childhood pet, Shaun’s loss of the Christian faith of his childhood, and the degeneration of his hearing that led to him developing severe and incrementally increasing tinnitus. It’s hard to describe the show formally. The pair would make good kids’ TV presenters - she’s bouncy and ebullient, he’s dry and courteous. There is definitely a presentational aspect to the whole thing: I learned an awful lot about the mechanics of tinnitus! There’s also an intoxicating...
  • Musicals

Entertaining Mr Sloane

It’s been 16 years since the last major London production of Joe Orton’s breakthrough play Entertaining Mr Sloane, and over a decade since the last major London Orton revival full stop (a 2012 West End production of What the Butler Saw). To a large extent that’s simply a result of the bleak ’60s farceur’s tragically slim body of work, but it’s high time he came around again and new Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall helms this revival of Mr Sloane as the opening production of her first season at the theatre. What if anything it will tell us about the tenor of her programming at the Vic remains to be seen, but certainly we’ll find out if she can do funny. Tamzin Outhwaite and Daniel Cerqueira lead the cast as a pair of siblings who both fall for their charismatic lodger Mr Sloane, much to the misgivings of their frail father. And in an intriguing piece of casting, Jordan Stephens – aka the main guy from Rizzle Kicks – will make his stage debut as Sloane.  
  • Comedy

Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

The works of US playwright Rajiv Joseph have occasionally been seen in the UK: most notably Jamie Lloyd directed his play Guards at the Taj, which had a seperate revival at the Orange Tree last year. Joseph’s biggest domestic hit, though, is 2009’s Pulitzer-nominated Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which went on to transfer to Broadway in 2011, with the late, great Robin Williams in the role of the titular fast-talking tiger. Following the bewildered beast as he attempts to adjust to unexpected events in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, the dark, somewhat supernatural comedy clearly had its roots in the actual aftermath of the Second Iraq War and the US occupation that was still winding down when the play debuted. Presumably concern as to the play’s topicality may have partially explained why there has been no UK production since, but it feels likely that not actually being about a current situation may prove quite liberating, especially in the hands of this production’s director, mischievous surrealist Omar Elerian. There’s no star on the ludicrous scale of Williams, but David Threlfall is a decent name for the tiger, and there’s a juicy supporting cast that includes big name Arinzé Kene, who has presumably been sweet talked by Elerian – who directed his massively acclaimed play Misty – into the relatively supporting role of US marine Kev.
  • Comedy
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