Warhol has wonderful stories from the party crowd he mixes with but he also reveals his insecurities to his fellow painter.  We see both men painting and drawing in the air as they collaborate on a General Electric logo or a Pan Am poster.  A graffiti artist, a friend of Basquiat’s is shot by the police when using spray cans.  Basquiat says, “I am painting because I want to bring the dead back to life.” This play is full of quirky humour tinged with sadness. 

The acting is superb.  I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy Pope particularly looks like Basquiat but his dread locks are exact and defining and his performance affecting.  There has been so much attention to detail making this production work.  Paul Bettany is too rare a performer on the London stage but the offers will flood in after his masterly portrayal of the famous artist.  I felt I was there in Warhol’s studio, helped of course by Anna Fleischle’s light warehouse set and DJ/VJ Xana’s hip hop introduction in music and video of the back streets of New York.     

Tragically, Basquiat is dead at 27 in 1988.  An auction in 2017 sold his painting  “Untitled” for $110.5 million, the highest price for any American artist.  Warhol is dead aged 58 in February 1987,  from a heart attack after gall bladder surgery needed from the shooting by Valerie Solanas. 

The Collaboration is so engrossing it feels peopled by more than its cast of four.  It is a rich experience of 1980s New York and not to be missed at the Young Vic.  This is a five star theatrical experience.