Comedy

Archduke

Royal Court Theatre

Three hungry men in 1914 Belgrade are offered a sandwich and a choice: kill an archduke, change history. The setup is dark comedy, absurd but also not, and the production doesn't flinch from the tension underneath. You get the funny bits, but you can't hide from what they mean.

The cast, Chris Walley, Abraham Popoola, Stanley Morgan, Janice Connolly, Marc Wootton, are all proper actors. People you've seen do serious work. Lyndsey Turner directs with Es Devlin designing, so this is resourced at the level of ideas, not just ambition.

It's about young men plotting radical action, made by a director and designer who know how to find the human story in history. The play sits somewhere between tension and dark comedy, and it doesn't shy away from either.

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