Aidan Gillen in Glengarry Glen Ross

Benedict Nightingale of The London Times: “James Macdonald’s West End revival, the first major one for 13 years, confirms that this is maybe Mamet’s strongest, boldest play. Certainly Jonathan Pryce and his fellow actors reinforce the dramatist’s reputation as the bard of four-letter brashness, the laureate of streetwise barbarism, a writer who creates a brazen, gaudy poetry that’s also absolutely purposeful and functional… Gillen’s Roma is the top salesman, which means that he’s winning the contest in which the first prize is a Cadillac, the second steak-knives, and the third and fourth the sack. Behind him comes Matthew Marsh’s thuggish Moss, and behind him Pryce’s Levene, who visibly sweats with grey-faced anxiety as he faces the prospect of doom, and behind him Paul Freeman’s Aaronow, who is too squeamish for the job and exudes the desolation of the American loser. Add Peter McDonald as the aloof, wintry office-manager they all need and hate—and you have a clutch of fine performances of carefully distinguished characters… I laughed, winced and shuddered at an American desperation that we go-getting British can’t wholly disown.”

Michael Billington of The Guardian: “Does David Mamet's superb play about desperate salesmen belong in a big theatre? At first, as we eavesdropped on a trio of restaurant-booth duologues, I had my doubts. But, when the second-act curtain rose to reveal Anthony Ward's epic vision of a ransacked real-estate office, there were cries of delight and the play effortlessly expanded to fill the space. Written in 1983, Mamet's study of competitive capitalism has scarcely dated in our frenziedly consumerist society. But, watching four men engaged in a cut-throat contest to sell dud tracts of Florida land, I was struck this time by the different faces of human desperation… The smell that pervades the play is one of fear, and, by engaging with terrified individuals, Mamet offers a powerful assault on a society where salesmanship has become a form of licensed criminality… The acting is uniformly fine. And, even if Mamet's play doesn't displace Miller's Death of a Salesman as a metaphor for the debasement of the American dream, it complements and updates it. It actually shows salesmen at work. More importantly, it reveals Mamet's own rich ambivalence. He shows a sneaking regard for these con men who daily put themselves on the line while at the same time depicting the ugliness of a society that depends on greed and gullibility. There is even a pleasing irony about seeing this attack on capitalism finally installed in our theatre's commercial heartland.”

Jonathan Pryce in Glengarry Glen Ross

Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph: “Glengarry Glen Ross [is] perhaps the last masterpiece in the grand tradition of American drama that began with O'Neill and continued with Williams, Miller and Albee before arriving at Mamet. This may strike some as an extravagant claim. Glengarry Glen Ross lasts barely 90 minutes (including an unnecessary interval), the language will still offend many, and at first glance the play can seem like little more than a sequence of sketches. But every time I see it, the more impressed I become. There isn't an ounce of fat on the piece, the staccato street rhythms of the dialogue are as exhilarating as great jazz, and beneath its apparent inconsequentiality lurk a satisfying plot, sharply drawn characters and a startling vision of the dark side of the American dream… Mamet's demotic dialogue is edgy, exhilarating and blackly comic as the characters plot, plead, and betray each other in what comes to seem a paradigm of both the energy and the cruelty of capitalism in action. Yet there is no suggestion of the manipulative allegory. The audience lives it moment by moment, watching intently as the balance of power keeps shifting between the characters… I apologise for banging on about the brilliance of a previous production, but the Joe Mantello staging I caught on Broadway three years ago starring Alan Alda struck me as a rare example of a show that was as near perfect as made no difference. James Macdonald's production just misses such greatness. The cast don't seem completely at ease with the distinctive American rhythms, and there are moments when the energy level dips… Not quite perfect, perhaps, but this is still a thrilling short, sharp shock of a show.”

Nicholas de Jongh of The Evening Standard: “No play better conveys the spirit of our money-obsessed times than this enthralling, black comedy by David Mamet. Glengarry Glen Ross, in an effective production by James Macdonald that snaps, crackles and pops with lies, threats and criminality, sees a Chicago real estate firm as characteristic of how contemporary American business-life is misconducted. During 80 minutes' playing-time scarcely a single expression of genuine kindness or generosity is heard… Few plays are so infested with such expletives or vituperative men who so proudly measure their masculinity according to the size of the deals they broker. No wonder ‘fairy’ becomes their deadliest insult. Aidan Gillen's riveting Richard Roma, who swindles an innocent husband with heartfelt sincerity by selling him worthless land and wears the nastiest little moustache on the London stage, boasts the charm of a slug clinging to your hand. Glengarry Glen Ross premiered in 1983, but appears more timely today, when both our main political parties bend over backwards to satisfy very big business, than it did in the first, blue, hot flush of Thatcherism.”

Patrick Marmion of The Daily Mail: “There’s no more macho writer than David Mamet, and his 1983 play is one of his most muscular… The characters talk too fast and make no concessions with their lingua franca. And yet the buzz is as infectious as bird flu. These are men mired in competition, jostling, bribing, shooting their mouths off in pursuit of a fast buck. Mamet’s language surges across the stage like raw sewage… Actors revel in Mamet’s mannered, repetitive rapid-fire dialogue. But it needs to be very finely calibrated—and that’s just what director James McDonald delivers… It’s not pretty, but as a pitiless analysis of a brutal world, you have to take your hat off to it.”