Bret Easton Ellis’s bestselling book American Psycho was worrying enough when it came out in 1991.
It’s the Jekyll and Hyde story of Patrick Bateman, a status-obsessed Wall Street banker who seems to have everything… including a secret life as a serial killer. Sadly, it feels more timely than ever in Rupert Goold’s snappy stage revival.
The show first chilled the blood in 2013, with Matt Smith as the main man. The 2026 version stars Arty Froushan, from the final Downton Abbey movie (he played Noel Coward). Patrick remains an offensively deluded fashion victim, zealously invested in the sins of the modern world.
But in today’s metastasised culture of ‘toxic masculinity’, his kind have grown even more familiar. Cue a cameo in an elevator for Donald Trump, who published The Art Of The Deal four years prior to Bateman’s literary birth.
What makes this more than just a run of the mill misogyny satire is the surprising pathos of Froushan’s Bateman, who (amusingly) claims to have fallen into an existential chasm while shopping in Bloomingdale’s department store. He’s like a tragic zombie on a misguided search for redemption.
Amid an expensive-looking display of catwalk couture, in Lynne Page’s body-popping choreography, our ripped psychopath has a creased suit – intentional or not, it makes his plight that bit more pathetic.
Rupert Goold’s stage revival of American Psycho runs at the Almeida until March 14
The play stars Arty Froushan, who played Noel Coward in the final Downton Abbey movie
The acting, like the dancing, is reduced to robotic posturing and macho face-offs
Fittingly, Duncan Sheik’s electro-pop music is the aural equivalent of ketchup spattered over the action. The best number is a Pet Shop Boys-style anthem to go with a macabre scene of almost recreational carnage. And, yes, it gets properly gruesome on Es Devlin’s minimalist set, starkly lit with geometric floor projections.
The acting, like the dancing, is reduced to robotic posturing and macho face-offs. Only Anastasia Martin, as PA Jean, retains any trace of warm humanity. So invested is the production in Easton Ellis’s nightmare of apex predation, it’s sometimes hard to tell if it’s for or against Patrick.
Either way, the show is sold out and will need a West End transfer to allow more people to judge for themselves.
American Psycho runs at the Almeida until March 14.
