A Face in the Crowd review – cautionary tale of the creation of a Trump-lite TV star

Young Vic, London This musical has the seeds of a brilliant show for our times with Ramin Karimloo on fine form, but its complex themes are sucked away by sledge-hammer messaging Elia Kazan’s 1957 film about a petty criminal turned television folk hero seems like a prescient story about the dangers of populism foretold, its excavation in this musical adaptation timely in itself. Lonesome Rhodes (Ramin Karimloo, a West End and Broadway stalwart) is scooped up from a jailhouse by roving reporter Marcia Jeffries (Anoushka Lucas, back at the Young Vic after her fabulous turn in Oklahoma!) and plonked in front of a microphone as the voice of an everyman American. His country singin’, straight talkin’ ways lead to sky-rocketing ratings and he becomes a “demigod in denim” with an ever-growing sway over public opinion.