National Theatre Live in HD: "Young Marx"
A new screwball comedy about a young, broke and emotionally illiterate Karl Marx.
“A seriously clever comedy. Riotous fun!” —The Times
This new comedy from the team behind One Man, Two Guvnors finds Europe’s most feared revolutionary (Rory Kinnear) broke, restless and hiding out in London. The 32-year-old revolutionary is a frothing combination of intellectual brilliance, invective, satiric wit and child-like emotional illiteracy. Creditors, spies, rival revolutionary factions and prospective seducers of his beautiful wife all circle like vultures. His writing blocked, his marriage dying, his friend Engels in despair at his wasted genius, Marx’s only hope is a job on the railway. But there’s still no one in the capital who can show you a better night on the town than Karl Heinrich Marx.
Young Marx is the debut production at The Bridge Theater—a dazzling, new 900-seat London addition run by former National Theatre chiefs Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr. Their goal is to deliver “bold, popular theatre,” and this screwball comedy about communism’s founding father is a great first step in that direction. With spot-on comic timing, Kinnear is in peak form as the hapless revolutionary, overwhelmed by debts, mouths to feed and the need to finish Das Kapital.
“I am the opposite of King Midas—everything I touch turns to debts,” Marx jokes. And yet, before a single preview performance, Young Marx had already garnered £1 million in ticket pre-sales. That’s the kind of mind-boggling sum most West End theater producers can only dream of when selling an untested piece of new writing. With this debut, the future of The Bridge season looks bright. Runtime: 2h40m
