POSH

Set in the private room of a country pub, eight unassuming boys from Oxford University dribble in, their business of the day complete (be it preparing for an internship, buying a classic motorbike, or cashing in a blowjob) and unleash who they were born to be: members of the Riot Club.

Unmistakably, the Riot Club is a parody of Oxford’s infamous Bullingdon Club, whose former members include our very own PM David Cameron, his best mate George Osborne, and everyone’s favourite idiot Boris Johnson, who is coincidentally the Mayor of London.

Moving on from the sad truth that our PM spent his university days vandalising reputable establishments in a uniform worth more than £3500 (a world away from Ocean) before going home to cry alone and listen to the Smiths, The Nottingham New Theatre did a marvelous job on its opening night of capturing the rollicking merriment which the members of this exclusive club appear to enjoy.

More interestingly, what also came across was the pitiable ardour the boys attach to a group which, summarised perfectly by Nick Hughes (Alistair) in Act 2, is nothing but a ‘historical re-enactment’.

Performance highlights include Giles Gear’s wonderful interpretation of Guy, oozing pretention and unpleasant ambition in every moment on stage, whether sitting silently, making a fool of himself, or tearing books apart.

Special commendation too should also go to Tommy Kennedy (Toby) and Hugh Williams (James) who performed with ease and were in total sync with where their characters fitted in with the rest of the cast.

Visually, this production is stunning: a long white table (last-supper style), beautifully lit by a chandelier and surrounded simply by picture frames. However, with the set working so hard to draw the audience into belief, the production was let down by a few dodgy props, for example an important letter, which looked suspiciously like it had been torn from a scrunched up spiral-bound notebook.

The performance also suffered because instead of standing up and demanding to be heard, as one might expect from such characters, some of the storyline was occasionally lost. Spoken well, but far too quickly and in an unusually garbled accent.

However, these are but crumbs of cheese left behind with the last few drops of port, because this show was convincing. Although Nottingham’s pretty posh, stepping up to Bullingdon level is another ball game.

Through the copious amounts of alcohol, the parlour games, and the chundering japes, you could tell that every member of this cast had lapped up the opportunity to unleash their inner posh, and it looked like they had glorious fun doing it.

Posh runs until Saturday at the Nottingham New Theatre, nightly at 7.30pm with a matinee on Saturday at 2.30pm.