Review Roundup: THE STANDARD OF LIVING at Theatre Royal Haymarket

What are theatre critics saying about The Standard of Living?

London Box Office

"Engaging and playful, brought to life by a terrific ensemble"

★★★★

Reviewer: Stuart King

"Directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Rory Kinnear as the Cambridge aesthete with a mind for macro economic matters, we are instantly drawn into the conflicting worlds which the great man inhabited — those of fusty Treasury Department corridors with their mandarins, graphs and theoretical market forces, juxtaposed with the avant-garde bohemian lifestyle of his friends in the Bloomsbury Set, which included painters Duncan Grant (Thomas Flynn) and Vanessa Bell (Claire Price) together with writers Lytton Strachey (Pip Carter) and Virginia Woolf (Naomi Frederick). "Living in squares, painting in circles and loving in triangles” was the oft-attributed critical simplification levelled at the Bloomsbury group who were renowned for their scandalously unconventional marital arrangements and open bisexuality. Indeed the production even manages to incorporate a public lavatory encounter which proves both funny and informative. Bob Crowley’s smart set leans heavily on sliding panels and flown-in shapes (which mirror Bell’s abstract compositions) onto which are projected images of the period. The actors maintain a snappy pace as they move in Keynes’ orbit and around the screens."

Read the review here.

The Telegraph

"Rory Kinnear is superb in this must-see play "

★★★★

Reviewer: Dominic Cavendish

"The applause for James Graham’s Olivier-winning Punch has barely subsided, and the Stakhanovite playwright, 44, is already back with another belter. The Standard of Living is a homage to John Maynard Keynes that combines entertainment value (for starters, gags about how you pronounce his name) with a stimulating survey of the Cambridge economist’s life, times and interventionist ideas. With slick direction from Nicholas Hytner, a winningly clipped but charismatic star turn from Rory Kinnear as the suited and sainted “father of macroeconomics”, and an entrancing “straight” debut from Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova as Keynes’s Russian ballerina wife, Lydia Lopokova, it’s incredibly timely, inviting us to ponder Keynes’s legacy as we face a fiscal black hole."

Read the review here.

WhatsOnStage

"Kinnear creates an unforgettable portrait of a man who bestrode his times"

★★★★

Reviewer: Sarah Crompton

"But by and large, Graham’s great achievement is to make the words jump up from the page, just as Osipova as Lopokova dances through the action, bringing colour and life to a monochrome world. He has a gift for making the past vital. The dialogue is often very funny, and Kinnear’s masterful performance is full of both passion and wry humour, with a gentle way of pausing just before he delivers a thought, or a put-down. Under Nicholas Hytner’s controlled direction and with the help of James Cousins’ clever choreography, economics becomes positively sexy as Keynes dances a tango with his “laissez faire” adversary Fredrich Hayek. “Tighten your belt,” cries Hayek as they turn. “Buy a new belt,” suggests Keynes. As Hayek, Laurie Kynaston’s performance is a beautiful balance of charm and zealotry."

Read the review here.

Photo by Manuel Harlan

The Guardian

"Rory Kinnear has bags of charm as Bloomsbury economist Keynes"

★★★

Reviewer: Arifa Akbar

"The drama has a slightly static quality despite the twirling red-and-white feathered dancers of the Ballets Russes and its slick movements through time. It seems essentially like a biographical trot through Keynes’s life, made with fondness and admiration for the man – but perhaps not enough of what lies beneath the surface. There is a flag-waving moment for the Arts Council at its birth. It is euphoric, but there is no nod to its current state. Still, there is a knowing moment when, talking about the dangerous effects of economic downturn, Keynes speaks of the draw to populism and political extremism – a nod to today, and a justification of this play’s contemporary relevance."

Read the review here.

Financial Times

"Keynes’ radical optimism drives James Graham’s unwieldy new play"

★★★

Reviewer: Sarah Hemming

"It’s a smart, funny opening to James Graham’s new play and, of course, ironic. The Standard of Living will prove to be anything but dry, rolling through the momentous events and multiple crises of the early 20th century, buzzing with gossip from the Bloomsbury Group (of which Keynes was a member) and laced with dance sequences, in Nicholas Hytner’s kaleidoscopic production, from Natalia Osipova as Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova (whom Keynes married). More importantly, driving the play is Keynes’ radical optimism: his belief that economics is no dusty subject but a “moral science”, fundamental to the lives we lead and the values we hold. Graham, Britain’s leading political playwright, has an ability to nail key turning points in contemporary culture and to illuminate the forces shaping our current world. The Standard of Living opens amid international turbulence, a cost-of-living crisis, an upsurge in far-right politics and an impassioned speech from UK prime minister Andy Burnham about putting Britain on a “new path”."

Read the review here.

TimeOut

"Kinnear is a delight as radical economist James Maynard Keynes"

★★★

Reviewer: Andrzej Lukowski

"It is still pretty damn good: nobody brings the past to life with the verve of Graham. It is, to be fair, almost certainly the most enjoyable play about an economist ever written. Kinnear is a delight as Keynes, who combines starchy Victorian gent, idealistic Boy Scout and sexually liberated bohemian in equal measures: he’s like an overgrown child prodigy who is is socially awkward in pretty much every given situation other than when it comes to shagging anything that moves. I wasn’t sure about his co-star Osipova: the Royal Ballet principal is actually fine in the role of Lopokova but the character does feel very ‘light relief Eastern European’ and she exists more of a disruptor of Keynes’ world than as somebody Graham seems seriously interested in."

Read the review here.

The Independent

"Rory Kinnear plays the pioneering British economist like a grumpy, party-pooping dad"

★★

Reviewer: Alice Saville

"It's nice when theatre proves you wrong. So it's unfortunate on multiple levels that James Graham’s play about a pioneering economist is about as dull as a pessimistic audience member might fear. Rory Kinnear plays the central role of Lord Maynard Keynes, a financial genius who skulks on the edge of the storied Bloomsbury set like he’s someone’s grumpy dad, bankrolling their lifestyles and bringing down the mood at their parties. In an attempt to make this man sexy rather than stodgy, Graham and director Nick Hytner have layered on all sorts of added excitements. Royal Ballet principal Natalia Osipova pirouettes between scenes, resplendent in red feathers, and there is no end of bisexual shenanigans. But it’s not enough to drag this tale out of lecture theatre territory."

Read the review here.

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The Standard of Living Tickets