Riotous and headspinning take on a Greek classic

Feminist vigilantes stalk the stage in the dark, witty and fabulously inventive 'Bacchae'

- Alice Saville

According to ancient myth, the fearsome bacchae were prone to turning their victims inside out and scattering their entrails over Greek mountain sides. And Heartstopper actor Nima Taleghani has done something similar to Euripides’s classic here. In his debut play, he inverts the rakish god Dionysos into a refugee searching for belonging, makes the tyrannical ruler Pentheus a lovable crossdresser, and softens the rampaging bacchae into likeable feminist vigilantes who address the audiences as “bitches”. It’s a headspinningly smart, visually spectacular, and hugely entertaining opening move from new National Theatre artistic director Indhu Rubasingham.

As bacchic den mother Vida, a winningly frank Clare Perkins gives us an intro to this world: “Basically, we just topple dickhead dictators and provide liberation,” she explains, before wittily reining in vicious sidekick Serene (Melanie Joyce-Bermudez), who'd rather be embedding her French-tipped fingernails in someone’s cranium.