WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Uber-menshen
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds the revival of an eerily prophetic drama
SCANDALOUS: Sean Delaney in Brilliant Jerks at Southwark Playhouse
[Pic: Nick Rutter ] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
Brilliant Jerks
by Joseph Charlton
Southwark Playhouse
WHEN Joseph Charlton’s Brilliant Jerks was first performed at Vault Festival in 2018, Uber was less than a decade old, but its influence on the world was already enormous. Despite huge global resistance to its exploitative practices and a series of scandals, it is now an entrenched global brand. Katie-Ann McDonough’s revival feels like a warning we have failed to heed.
The plot melds three engrossing but uneven stories. Mia (Kiran Sonia Sawar) is a Glaswegian driver offering “bargain-bucket therapy” to stray passengers as they fall out of nightclubs or need a ferry to the airport. Sean (Sean Delaney) is an overly trusting coder, riding the wave of the company’s success and Tyler (Shubham Saraf) is the juvenile, status-obsessed CEO, hell-bent on taking over the world.
Between the three of them they also multi-role thirteen other characters in a whirlwind ninety minutes in which it’s not always easy to keep up, especially with costume changes kept to an absolute minimum.
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