REVENGE: After the Levoyah – Soho Theatre, London

Writer: Nick Cassenbaum

Director: Emma Jude Harris

Nick Cassenbaum’s REVENGE: After the Levoyah is a non-stop riot of wit and hilarity. Gemma Barnett and Charlie Cassen play Lauren and Ben, Jewish twins (non-identical, they helpfully point out) whose grandfather has just died. Instantly, they turn into rabbi, family and fellow mourners. ‘What you want for lunch?’ a relative mimes to her husband over the coffin.

Lennie, the dead man, was a real East End geezer, a butcher by trade who’d done well and moved to Essex. We know this because his best mate, Malcolm Spivak, bursts onto the scene with his unbuttoned shirt and gold chain, with an idea. Fired up by a lifetime’s hatred of anti-semitism, he wants revenge on the whole pack of them. They’re all yoks, he announces, cheerfully unaware of his own prejudices. His plan? Well, obviously, Jeremy Corbyn is the embodiment of it all, so they’re going to kidnap him and exact their revenge. No Labour politician is going to get hurt in this show, we realise, as one by one various hard-bitten characters admit that personally they’ve got a lot of time for him.

Lauren and Ben somehow find themselves caught up in this madcap scheme. The plot is deliciously complex, the jokes coming thick and fast. Spivak is a fabulous master of menacing sarcasm. ‘What you going to do? Flower-arrange him to death?’ he snaps at one of his recruits. 90-something-year-old Moise is his tiny sidekick, brilliantly embodied by Barnett. As Lauren, she’s under pressure to do the conventional thing. Can’t she marry Joshua, the oldies ask. But when Joshua lays out his marriageability on a spreadsheet, Lauren knows it’s not for her. On the other hand, there’s the handyman she’s accidentally killed (well, his hidden tattoo might have been a swastika), so perhaps Joshua’s proposal of married life in Tel Aviv is a way out?

Barnett and Cassen are simply dazzling as the whole cast of wacky characters, Cassenbaum’s writing pitch-perfect, and the whole thing moves at a dizzying pace thanks to the direction of Emma Jude Harris.

A night to remember. Simply unmissable.

Runs until 24 January 2026