Review Roundup: Jack Throne's WOYZECK Starring John Boyega Opens at the Old Vic - All the Reviews!

The multi-award winning Jack Thorne breathes new life into Woyzeck, directed by Joe Murphy. One of the most influential plays ever written, Thorne creates for our time what Büchner intended for his: an unforgettable howl of rage. The production began previews 15 May and opened last night, 23 May 2017, at The Old Vic.

It's 1980s Berlin. The Cold War rages and the world sits at a crossroads between Capitalism and Communism. On the border between East and West, a young soldier and the love of his life are desperately trying to build a better future for their child. But the cost of escaping poverty is high, and its tragic consequences unfold in this searing tale of the people society leaves behind.

Casting includes John Boyega (Woyzeck), Ben Batt (Andrews), Nancy Carroll (Maggie), Darrell D'Silva (Doctor Martens), Sarah Greene (Marie) and Steffan Rhodri (Captain).

Let's see what the critics had to say!

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Anne Treneman, The Times: It's a searing experience, watching a man go mad, especially if that man is being played by John Boyega, of Star Wars fame, who turns in a very fine and distressingly good performance here in the title role.

This will be a Marmite production and, for me, the second half was like being trapped inside my nightmare of nightmares. Nothing made sense, everyone was crazy, their insides being turned out (sometimes literally). It is not easy to watch and some people will find it perturbing.

Tim Bano, The Stage: As Woyzeck's childhood traumas haunt him, the world he lives in reveals its inequalities more variously and more insidiously than in Buchner's original: Steffan Rhodri's obliviously upper-class Captain Thompson doesn't care about Woyzeck's financial difficulties, while Ben Batt's roguish, laddish Andrews - a breath of comic relief - calculatedly attempts to seduce Woyzeck's girlfriend because he's bored.

Newly-minted Hollywood A-lister John Boyega, the star attraction as Woyzeck, starts slowly and with muted range. He tumbles through his lines on one note, and it isn't clear if the ennui he emits is intentional or not. There are whispers of a latent ferocity and something mighty in his gestures, like a bull trying hard not to destroy the china shop.

Andrzej Lukowski. Time Out: But before it all turns into a weird Freudian nightmare in the second half, culturally savvy 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' scribe Jack Thorne's new version makes total sense for Boyega. Here, Frank Woyzeck is a British soldier posted in West Germany during the Cold War. The character's puppyish enthusiasm, cornball humour, underlying insecurity and intense love for his partner Marie (an enjoyably fiery Sarah Greene) are a perfect fit for Boyega's youthful brio. He shows he can act, if that was ever in doubt, but he also brings an ebullience and fun to a play not exactly famous for either of those things.

Michael Billington, The Guardian: Joe Murphy's production, while cleverly executed, compounds this by giving us the full expressionist works. Tom Scutt's design consists of sliding panels that have the claustrophobic feel of a padded cell. We get thunderous music from Isobel Waller-Bridge, an explosive sound-score from Gareth Fry and dream-sequences, representing Woyzeck's Oedipal fantasies, that remind me of another work Thorne adapted for the stage, Let the Right One In. Boyega, however, is compelling to watch. He starts on a low key, suggesting a Woyzeck who combines physical power with emotional vulnerability.

Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard: Boyega and Greene make a fine central pairing. Impecunious but convincingly happy at the start, their love crumbles under the force of external circumstance. Marie is prepared to fight for their union but Woyzeck, in Boyega's committed and muscular performance, increasingly seems to want to fight only with himself. This isn't an easy watch, but it certainly rewards audience effort.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: Boyega owns that space. He has enormous command and charisma. I'd have liked him to be slightly stiller as madness descends in the second act, but there is no doubting his power, his intensity or the devastating way that he conveys both a terrified vulnerability and a ferocious, broiling violence as he desperately tries to comprehend what is happening to him.

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