Do we really need this unsubtle and irrelevant play about Covid?

Pandemonium is a new satire about the Covid nightmare that uses the quaint style of the Elizabethan masque. Armando Iannucci’s play opens with Paul Chahidi as Shakespeare introducing a troupe of players who all speak in rhyming couplets. A golden wig descends like a signal from on high and Shakespeare transforms himself into the ‘World King’ or ‘Orbis Rex’.

This jocular play reminds spectators with a low IQ that Orbis is an anagram of Boris. The former prime minister, also labelled the ‘globular squire’, is portrayed as a heartless, arrogant schemer driven by ambition and vanity. He retells the main events of the pandemic with the help of an infernal aperture which works as a dungeon, a hospital and, finally, as a version of Hades into which the characters are sucked.

The cabinet is thronged with loathsome power-mad crooks. Dominic Raab, renamed Dominant Wrath, is described as ‘a day-long punch’. Michael Gove becomes ‘Michael Go’ on the flimsy pretext that ‘go’ is the one thing he won’t do. We meet Noddin’ Dorries, Jacob Rhesus-Monkey and Cressida Dick-joke. The present Prime Minister, Richer Soonest, is treated very leniently and it’s obvious that Iannucci and his director, Patrick Marber, have a soft spot for the mega-wealthy Tory chief. He’s played by Natasha Jayetileke as a charming computer geek with a secret passion for ballet. He pirouettes across the stage displaying his tapered trousers and his talent as a dance maestro. It’s fun to watch. And it’s a relief to see a loveable character amid this cast of ogres, ghouls and criminals.

The most loathsome figure, Matt Handjob, is played by Amalia Vitale in a snot-green jumpsuit which makes his seduction of a sexy special adviser even more revolting. The Handjob scenes are accompanied by flashes of memorable language.