Robert Downey Jr's Broadway debut widely panned

Robert Downey Jr has made his Broadway debut in the new play, McNeal.

McNeal opened last night at New York's Lincoln Centre Theatre to mixed reviews. It stars Downey Jr as the title character Jacob McNeal, an author who has just won the Nobel Prize in Literature. His acceptance speech focuses on the challenges of AI and, as we soon learn, McNeal knows the subject first-hand, having dabbled in using it to write one or more of his books.

"Robert Downey Jr is in a play about AI that makes no sense," was the headline of the Washington Post's review, while Variety opined that "Robert Downey Jr's Broadway debut is stale and confounding."

USA Today called the play "an endurance test".

The New York Theatre Guide was more complimentary to Downey Jr, stating: "In his Broadway debut, Downey steps up; he's sure-footed and magnetic. The play itself, less so." Entertainment Weekly concurred, noting that "he may truly be the only person who can make a character like Jacob McNeal tolerable for the entirety of the play's one hour and 40-minute runtime."

The Oppenheimer star is one of the highest-grossing screen actors of all time, counting the Spiderman, Avengers and Iron Man franchises among his many credits. He most recently starred on the small screen as Claude in the HBO hit TV mini-series The Sympathiser.

McNeal is Downey Jr's first stage role in more than 40 years, since his short-lived appearance in the off-Broadway musical American Passion in 1983.