One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest review – Aaron Pierre makes a mesmerising McMurphy

Old Vic theatre, London Director Clint Dyer brings a fresh political focus to Ken Kesey’s story of disempowerment but the relentless misogyny of the text feels retrograde When Randle P McMurphy is thrust into an American psychiatric hospital in the early 1960s, the torpid air begins to crackle. As the anarchic McMurphy, Aaron Pierre gives a storming performance but although Clint Dyer’s stirring take on Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel boldly reframes the story, the text can’t support his ideas. McMurphy…