Sacha Baron Cohen has announced he is “beyond delighted” to star in a West End play written by Quentin Tarantino. The show is called The Popinjay Cavalier. Nobody has yet explained what a popinjay is, and the press release does not seem to know either.
The man who once convinced a Kazakh journalist to wrestle a naked stranger in a hotel room is now going to sing for a paying audience in a theatre with a fire exit. Tarantino, who has made a career out of severed ears and slow-motion gunfire, is apparently writing the book. The stage directions will presumably include the word “blood” more often than the dialogue includes the word “love.”
Is this a cultural milestone? It is a West End ticket with a fake moustache on it.
The producers have promised a show that is both “deeply theatrical” and “unapologetically raw,” which is what producers say when they want the audience to bring a towel. The Popinjay Cavalier is expected to run for a fixed season, after which it will be remembered mainly by the people who were in the second row and will not stop talking about it.