Revelatory Richie

Theatre: Lone Star & Pvt. Wars, King’s Head; We The People, Globe; All About My Mother, Old Vic

The King’s Head has a deserved hit on its hands with a James McLure double bill about soldiers haunted by Vietnam. Emasculation is the linking theme and the scripts dance nimbly between the opposing poles of pathos and high comedy. James Jagger (handsome boy, highly watchable, famous dad) has a very promising line in wry comedy. But the real revelation here, to me at least, is Shane Richie, whom I last saw hosting game shows on telly. I thought that’s all he did. But what an actor. His two performances are expertly differentiated from one other. First, he’s Roy, a strutting peacock of a veteran whose life implodes when he learns that his wife has seduced his brother. After the interval he plays Silvio, a darker, richer, funnier, sadder role, a war invalid who compulsively exposes himself to nurses.