We may have waited an anguished seven years for it to be published, at a public cost of £10.3m, but how many people have had all 12 volumes of the Chilcot report as their bedtime reading recently?
Well, put your guilt aside. An Edinburgh festival fringe show – which is pushing the boundaries of entertainment to its limit – could take the task off your hands.
From 8 August, a host of comedians, authors and politicians, including Stewart Lee, Omid Djalili and Ian Rankin, are to stage a complete reading of Sir John Chilcot’s 6,000-page report on the Iraq war, invasion and occupation.
The non-stop performance, which will take about two weeks to complete, will involve a rolling line-up of volunteers reading aloud the 12 volumes of the report that was finally released in July after a seven-year wait. At 2.6m words, it is three times the length of the complete works of William Shakespeare.
The comedian Bob Slayer, who masterminded the idea, said he hoped the reading would persuade people to fully engage with the report, as well as spark discussions about the role of the former prime minister Tony Blair and his government’s actions in the build-up to military action in Iraq.
Slayer said: “This is one of the most important documents of our time but who has actually sat down and read it in detail? From the first day it was released, everyone had all these in-depth opinions and analysis, but who gone through each word from start to finish? If these mistakes are never going to happen again then it’s important that it’s not just a few people in Whitehall know what it says, but all of us, the public.”
The report criticised Blair and his advisers for overstating the threat posed by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and for the “wholly inadequate” plans for the aftermath of the US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003.
In the wake of recent political turmoil, Slayer said there was a danger of the Chilcot report “passing us by” without any repercussions for those involved and “without us learning the lessons of the past”. He added: “I want this to get people talking, to ignite some passion around the subject that I think has just died down too quickly.”
The reading at Edinburgh, entitled Iraq Out & Loud, will be staged in a garden shed erected by Slayer on the city’s South College Street and will be streamed live. An audience of four will be allowed in each hour for the price of £5 a head, with the money going to a charity supporting refugees. Audience members will get the chance to do a bit of reading themselves.
In small, adjacent rooms, discussions on the Chilcot report, between readers and the audience, are due to take place.
Slayer emphasised that although the line-up featured comedians, the performance did not intend to mock or make light of the findings in the Chilcot report. “We’re reading it out straight, it’s not a joke, it’s not be ridiculed,” he said. “However, we’ve got some interesting characters involved so who knows how they will take this on. Will it be enjoyable to watch? Well that remains to be seen.”
Slayer said he had already been inundated with requests from comedians and other performers to take part and had emphasised that “absolutely anyone” was welcome to read a section for an hour. A website has been set up for the public to nominate themselves and Slayer urged anyone going to the Edinburgh festival, which runs from 5 to 29 August, to sign up.
Readers include the comedians Reginald D Hunter, Jo Caulfield and Simon Munnery, and the SNP MP Tommy Sheppard. The person to go first will be picked out of a hat on the evening.
The readers will be given no specific instructions on how to read Chilcot’s words aloud, but the organisers said they were hoping for an average of 120 words a minute. And while two weeks might seem a long time for a single performance, Slayer pointed out that this was nothing compared with the seven years it had taken to complete the report.
Rankin said he could not wait to get reading. “I was on my holidays when the Chilcot report was published, so this is my best chance to get to read at least some of it. It’s either that or wait for the film.”
Djalili described the task as the most “current and brilliant idea on the Edinburgh fringe” but Lee, never one for over-enthusiasm, said: “I like the length of the Chilcot report, but am disappointed by the variety of content.”
The report is free online but a full set of the paper version costs £767.
