The Stage, 24 July 2003
by Peter Hepple
**Thanks, Celia

As the third play in its Travelex season, the National not only welcomes Kenneth Branagh back to the theatre but has given him the title character in David Mamet's most excoriating play, a searing sequence of events in the life of a man who leaves his wife after consulting a fortune teller and immediately careers down a path of self-destruction.

Not that his was his intention. Perhaps he fancied a drink or two, followed by a visit to a prostitute while he considered the consequences of his decision.

But by hurling himself preciptiously into the city's currupt underbelly he is caught up in a maelstrom of venaliity and violence, which ends with him banged up in jail for battering a waitress to death.

Edmond is a seriously unpleasant play but also a full-frontal attack on present-day society. Branagh plays the title character with a mounting realisation that Edmond is beginning to relish the world he is sucked into - in which street hustlers operate gambling scams, massage parlours are flimsy fronts for brothels - evidenced by the excitement he experiences by beating a black pim[p into a pulp.

It is a frightening parable of sorts, vividly directed by Edward Hall in no fewer than 23 scenes, the locations being merely suggested in Michael Pavelka's designs. And while we watch it, disgusted and not a little scared, we realise how influential it was. First produced 21 years ago, it was among the first and is still the best, of the in-yer-face plays.