Review: ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST at The Old Vic

Central to proceedings is the role of Randle P. (RP) McMurphy, made famous in the multi-Oscar winning film version by Jack Nicholson and here played by Aaron Pierre. His arrival at the institution ruled over by the overzealous hospital administrator Nurse Ratched (Olivia Williams) serves as a catalyst for disruption. As a natural rules breaker, he is soon antagonising the sadistic stickler in an environment where despite mini-victories, the system will ultimately always prove the winner.

In RP’s firmament are a rag tag bunch of unfortunates. Ruckley (Ene Frost), Martini (Jason Pennycooke), Cheswick (Javone Prince) and Scanlon (Mo Sesay) have each been institutionalised either willingly or forcibly due to their personality disorder or condition and have largely been forgotten or forsaken by the outside world. They spend their days nursing personal tics and foibles, taking the meds which keep them calm and generally watching life pass by. As disruptor, RP finds a means to first engage and bond with each, then make them complicit as his lieutenants in a bid to awaken them from what he sees as their life-denying stupor.

Staged in the round on a set designed by Ben Stones, the production is helmed by director Clint Dyer and pitches its band of misfits as though it were a wider metaphor for black suppression. As such, this institution could just as easily be a US prison as an institution treating (or mistreating?) those with mental disorders. In the central role, Pierre is a handsome hulking brute of a man who quickly assumes top dog status by mocking Nurse Ratched’s coldly coercive and intimidating treatment of those in her charge. Ably supported by a quiet looming Native American Chief Bromden (Arthur Boan), a fastidious and unsuited-to-marriage Dale Harding (Giles Terera) and the nervous and stuttering Billy Bibbit (Kedar Williams-Stirling) events quickly take an uproarious turn, demanding the most insidious and extreme methods to control and suppress — with only minimal resistance from the largely cowed consultant Dr Spivey (Matthew Steer) who perhaps serves as a cringingly emasculated metaphor for institutional safeguards. The inmates are emboldened and enjoy their momentary rebellion but revert to a cowardly state of compliance once their ringleader is neutralised.

Does the production offer a broad brush stroke condemnation of the modern USA? At a stretch, perhaps. Is it a rallying call to individuality and the exercising of free will to speak up and challenge those in authority? Most definitely — even when the potential consequences may appear daunting. As such the show should probably be playing to packed houses at a theatre on Broadway!

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST continues at The Old Vic until 23rd May and has a running time of 2 hours 40mins including 20 min interval.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Tickets