It is reassuring to discover that the 'chattering classes' really do chatter. I heard them last night at the National Theatre. The noise was unmistakeable. 'Chatter, chatter, chatter' it went. I also saw their king, a portly gentleman who surveyed the hubbub with serene detachment. It was Mark Lawson. The chatterers pretended not to notice him, staring askance in the way that people who think they shouldn't be impressed by minor celebrity demonstrate that they are impressed by minor celebrity.
I also know it was the chattering classes because of the play, David Edgar's new piece 'Playing With Fire'. It is about ill-judged meddling by a New Labour apparatchik in the venomous local politics of a racially divided Northern town. What, other than perhaps a bedroom farce about a Pinot Noir salesman in Baghdad, could be more chatterworthy?
Here, for anyone who can't make the journey to London, is the play condensed:
The scene: a Northern Town, the North
New Labour apparatchik: Modernise or die. First Amiable Old Labour councillor: If we must, but we'd rather not. New Labour apparatchik: And get some Asians on the council for God's sake. Less Amiable Old Labour councillor: There'll be trouble! BNP-type angry man: It's political correctness gone mad! Mild-mannered Asian councillor: This isn't working. There's a riot outside. Second Amiable Old Labour councillor: (tears off mask, reveals self to be populist UKIP-type angry man, laughs maniacally): You have fallen into my trap, wah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Curtain. Chatter.
