“Directed with vaudevillian flair and firecracker snap by Goold...The first act abounds in adrenaline...'Ink' proposes that the sensibility that would generate today’s tidal wave of social media originated with early London-era Murdoch. At the same time, this production is steeped in a gritty nostalgia for the end of a chapter in journalism...The largely American, multicast ensemble deploys varyingly confident British accents. But it does well in sustaining the play’s propulsive momentum. "
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“Graham labors hard to humanize Lamb with shadows of self-doubt, this psychological element is oversold and unconvincing, and we’re left with a long show about a foregone conclusion...Goold knows that ‘Ink’ needs ginning up, and boy, he ladles on the gin. This production is loud, and it’s lit like a rock show...Goold may think he’s rescuing a dry procedural by turning it into hyperactive, overamplified children’s theater for adults, but he’s actually administering the killing blow.”
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"Riveting playwriting from Graham and thrilling stagecraft from Goold...James Graham expertly marshals the human drama behind these headlines -- and it is properly galvanised by a pair of towering performances: Bertie Carvel, reprising his London Olivier-winning performance as a young, ruthless and determined Murdoch, and Jonny Lee Miller as his equally single-minded editor. They are both spellbinding."
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“Directed with plenty of pop and fizz by Goold, and driven by the compelling performances of Carvel and Miller, it’s both playful and thoughtful — not, perhaps, a kick-in-the-guts play, but an energetic, respectable handshake...’Ink’ is perhaps on the back-heavy side, with all of the play’s weightiest, densest episodes shoved into Act Two, whereas most of the first act is dedicated to the amusing, 'Ocean’s Eleven'–like assembling of The Sun’s ragtag team.”
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"Your fairly standard slice-of-life drama, but one that’s been tricked out to feel more contemporary than it really is...Graham never really tells us who Murdoch is...Graham has written a buddy newspaper story—one without a buddy but with all the wisecracking and smoking and typing that we’ve heard and seen time and again...One could make an easy argument for ‘Ink’ as a treatise on the rotten rise of celebrity culture, but its intellectual properties aren’t that expansive.”
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"Carvel's fictional Murdoch is irresistibly outrageous...Miller is just as good, bulldozing his way through his scenes with knockdown energy, and the rest of the ensemble cast charges after the two of them like gung-ho soldiers bound for glory, egged on by Mr. Goold and his superb design team. They generate enough energy among them to mostly overcome the structural weaknesses of 'Ink'...A refreshing piece of intelligent, mostly unpreachy entertainment."
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“Graham’s play is so well-crafted that not knowing your Sun from your Mirror is a fairly minor hindrance...Graham and Goold cleverly illustrate the exhilaration of this chaotic frontier by peppering the play with eruptions of music and dance...Miller and Carvel give two of the most commanding performances...The play works best as an intellectual exercise, clever and smart but short on emotion. Even the murder feels more like a playwright’s warning than a human tragedy."
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“For today’s battered journos assaulted by newsroom cutbacks...’Ink’ is gloriously nostalgic catnip for a vanished era of newsprint and reckless behavior...Much of the appeal of ‘Ink’, directed with palpable if unsubtle joy by Gould on a cheerily chaotic Bunny Christie setting, centers on that evocation of circa 1970, and on the colorful, boozy characters then found in tabloid newsrooms...Yet in the end, ‘Ink’ is a bit of a morality play.”
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