Marx and Engels, Engels and Marx!

The most pleasing element in this new play from Bean and Coleman is the sharp-witted writing that gives Rory Kinnear, Oliver Chris and Nancy Carroll the freedom to create an instantly engaging scene of domestic misery, professional decay and matrimonial disaster, against which is set a fast paced comedy that delights.

As an audience you ponder what could possibly go wrong for the young Karl Marx? Surely, he's going to be a giant of modern political thought that is spending his exile years studiously developing his theories and ideas amid the weighty tomes of the British Library Reading Room of the 1850's?

We meet Kinnear's Marx hopelessly trying to pawn his wife's last heirloom from her Prussian aristocratic family. Penniless, having been deported for inciting revolution across most of Europe, London is filled with spies and the fever of change.

And so follows a couple of hours of hapless disasters, from his writers block, to his infidelity and the all too predictable consequences, a duel at dawn, a punch-up in the British Library with a fantastic throw-away comment to Charles Darwin, to a final sobering moment that brings the comic train to a halt.

The driving force of the play is the task of staying one step ahead of the bailiffs, keeping the family from destitution, finding out who the spies are, staying alive, not getting caught by the wife for sleeping with the maid, and all the time leaning heavily on the goodwill of his partner in revolution and mishap, Friedrich Engels.

It's not surprising that The Young Marx feels like a close cousin to One Man Two Guvnors. It shares the same creative team and feels remarkably alike. But whereas 'One Man' is just that, a show that revolves around one very hungry man as he pursues his love, 'Young Marx' is an ensemble piece that lets sparks fly across the stage as each plays their part to shepherd a man forward in his destiny.

The carousel box scenery that rotates from pawn shop, to Marx's rooms, to British Library, to meeting rooms, is an inspired choice, bringing to mind the merry-go-round action of the play.

Moving at a pace the evening passes at a very agreeable pace, with references old and new keeping this a fresh and contemporary piece that is a very fitting opening to the splendid new venue that it christens.

View our show pages for more information about Young Marx, Bridge Theatre.