Mercury Fur - Critical Response

Critical Response

The play became a huge cause celebre when it premiered, with even Ridley's publishers of ten years, Faber and Faber, refusing to publish the text.

Critical response was almost as fevered as the events on stage with Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph declaring everyone concerned with the production had been 'degraded' and, more controversially, that Ridley was 'turned on by his own sick fantasies.'

But there was a lot of support for the play too, with The Sunday Times John Peter urging people to see it: It is a play you need to see for its diagnosis of a terror-stricken and belligerent civilisation. I recommend it strongly to the strong in heart.

It set the critics at odds with each other, with Guardian frontliner Michael Billington (critic) insisted that the portrayed 'social breakdown ... flies in the face of a mass of evidence one could produce to the contrary', whilst Lyn Gardner and Miranda Sawyer joined the ranks of those stalwartly siding with the lyricism of the piece.

Despite this controversy - or perhaps because of it - the play sold out on its initial run and, by the end, was playing to an enthusiastic young audience. It has since created a cult following of its own, with theatre makers desperate to retell its story and audiences to see the story being told.