ajhlovestheatre

NERO

Book and lyrics by Steven Sater

Music by Duncan Sheik

directed by Lindsay Posner 

Southwark Playhouse Elephant, London – until 5 December 2026

running time: 2 hours 30 minutes including interval 

https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/nero/

Incest, murder, insanity, perversion, sexual coercion, self-mutilation, matricide, Glam Rock ….any musical that features stuff like this has no business being as tedious and bland as Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Nero turns out to be. Although billed as new, Nero has actually been twenty three years in the making. If this version, currently serving up tonal whiplash and bewilderment to game Southwark Playhouse audiences, is the finished article after all that time, the mind boggles at what the earlier drafts must have been like.

Since this off-West End run was announced before the untimely death earlier this year of composer Duncan Sheik, one can’t accuse the producers of cashing in on a tragedy. But it remains a mystery what attracted them, or a director of the quality of Lindsay Posner, whose work here might best be described as unobtrusive, to this bizarre project. 

Creating a musical about one of the most horrifically corrupt and perverted Emperors of the Roman Empire isn’t an intrinsically terrible idea – indeed one could argue that it’s uniquely timely for 2026 – but Nero just doesn’t know what it is. It starts out as unadulterated camp, with Andrew Barth Feldman’s titular Roman performing a rocky number all decked out in swishy, flamboyant gear before being interrupted by his mother Agrippina (Sally Dexter) enquiring why he’s wearing her clothes…again. But then the tone changes to contemplative and disturbing with the introduction of the much sinned against step siblings Octavia (Nabi Brown) and Britannicus (Timo Tatzber). The lightning fast switches between showbiz excess, history lesson and bad taste humour have a cumulative effect of making it seem that nobody on the creative team is in control of the themes or the material.

Fans of Sheik’s work on Spring Awakening and American Psycho will enjoy spotting the echoes of those scores but the music here is largely unmemorable, lacking the punch of the former and the nihilistic exhilaration of the latter. The style is mainly folky and melancholic, frequently feeling underpowered and ill-matched to the drama of the story being told. There are a couple of other musical styles thrown in for eclectic measure – a bit of rock, some tango, a sub-Kander and Ebb number for Seneca (Stephen Carlile) with the chorus wielding briefcases that open to reveal tongues and teeth for no very intelligible reason – and the lyrics are mostly fine, but it just never gets off the ground. Rhianne-Louise McCaulskey’s attractively disdainful Poppea, here reconceived as a sort of amoral pop star pitched half way between Beyoncé and Josephine Baker, gets a fun disco number that wouldn’t sound or look out of place at the Eurovision Song Contest. The choreography by James Cousins utilises every cliché in the book but is quite effective.

Sater’s script veers wildly between sub-Shakespearean portentousness and half-hearted Carry On… style humour that seldom lands. It never falls into “so bad it’s good” territory, but neither is it ever funny or dramatic enough. Nor, given the extremity of the tale being told, does it ever feel shocking enough. The current off-Broadway hit Slam Frank, which satirises the super-woke as it retells the Anne Frank legend, last year’s Midnight Cowboy on this same Southwark Elephant stage and Sheik’s own American Psycho all prove that musical theatre can be provocative and downright uncomfortable, but Nero never quite has the courage of its convictions.

Given the weakness of the material, the cast are doing stellar work. While obviously one wishes that rising star Feldman was making his UK debut in a stronger work, he’s still pretty terrific. Although unfortunately saddled with costumes that look like somebody ran riot in the M&S ladieswear department during the mid 1980s (Posner’s staging is big on anachronisms), he is magnetic and fearless, investing the anti-hero with a twisted charisma and palpable sense of dangerous instability, with a rangy rock voice. If cis men are still allowed to play Hedwig (of the Angry Inch fame) then somebody needs to cast Feldman as soon as possible. 

Sally Dexter, one of this country’s finest but most underrated actresses, brings a throaty intensity and classical gravitas, as well as a hint of glorious camp, to the role of his murderous mother. She really is so much better than her material here, but she just about makes it work, which is damn impressive under the circumstances. That’s true also of Stephen Carlile’s supercilious, gimlet-eyed schemer Seneca. Brown and Tatzber sing beautifully but aren’t otherwise required to do much more than stand around looking mournful.

There are some striking visual moments, including one where the entire cast is engulfed in Nero’s voluminous golden cloak, that serve to slightly deflect attention away from the underwhelming songs. Most of the staging is ponderous though, and not always visible unless you’re in the front row, although that may be a blessing. The heavy red drapes of Georgia Lowe’s set in the first half, which makes the whole thing look a bit like an unusually racy school play put on possibly by the Classics department, gives way after the interval to a giant mirrored wall so that you can at least watch other audience members yawning and checking their watches. Tony Gayle’s sound design is well judged and allows us to hear every harmony and every instrument (including a harp) in Phil Bateman’s band.

Nero has a list of trigger warnings on the theatres website as long as your arm – “strong language, retching, blood, gore, incest, nudity and violence” – but the one they missed out was boredom. Worth seeing for Feldman and Dexter perhaps, but this is quite a slog. Like the title character fiddling while Rome burnt, Nero is a hot mess.