Lunatics at large

The Dysfunckshonalz!; Some Kind of Bliss; William Blake’s Divine Humanity

The spirit of punk and its exhilarating lunacies are brilliantly captured in a new show at the Bush. Mike Packer’s affectionate satire tells the story of The Dysfunckshonalz, a major punk band of 1977, who 30 years on are approached by an American bank eager to use their best-known song to promote a new credit card. Bribed with a mountain of cash, the middle-aged stars fly to America to reprise their act. But at the debut gig their singer, Billy Abortion, reverts to his punk roots and sabotages the show by stabbing himself on stage and collapsing in a pool of blood yelling, ‘Three cheers for bin Laden.’ Instead of wrecking the band, the stunt relaunches them, and the play explores the competing claims of punk’s business-bashing ethic and the temptations of brute greed.

The director Tamara Harvey draws excellent performances from the band members and from Josephine Butler as a sexily aloof American PR girl. Pearce Quigley does a sublime turn as the stammering alcoholic drummer whose punk costume consists of a swastika T-shirt inscribed ‘Destroy’ and a black leather ‘Cambridge rapist’ mask. On the day of the London reunion gig his mother dies and he’s overwhelmed with grief. ‘If only she could see me now,’ he wails. As tears besprinkled his swastika, I spotted several youngsters in the audience who were utterly aghast at the arithmetic. Death plus rape plus Nazi symbolism equals comedy. It didn’t add up. But that was spirit of punk. Its hatreds were liberating, its hostilities all the more intoxicating for their lack of any governing rationale. This is a wonderful return trip to 1977 and, like all nostalgia, it takes you back but you don’t have to stay.