We desperately need political satire, yet now seems an odd time to resurrect, as Ben Alderton’s play does, the run-up to the general election of 2015. His target is clearly a broken political system and the culture of misogyny, mendacity and corruption that accompanies it but, while his comedy is spasmodically entertaining, it is too broad and bilious to carry much conviction.
Alderton himself plays David Carter, prime minister and leader of the Blue party, who is seen as a bullying monster without any of the surface plausibility of his real-life model. The best joke involves his contempt for his coalition partner, Nick Clog, who is treated as a patronised coffee-boy. Meanwhile, Carter’s opposite number in the Red party, Ned Contraband, is a vacillating wimp unsure whether to play the role of a nice guy, as advised by a hippie guru, or a tough hombre, as encouraged by his media strategist. Both Contraband and Carter are part of the boys’ club of British politics but are ultimately controlled by behind-the-scenes women.
There may be a grain of truth in all this, however Alderton overstates his case in a way that makes The Thick of It look positively subtle. The one sympathetic character is an idealistic consultant who works for the Blues yet mysteriously ends up backing a character called Corbz. Roland Reynolds’s production gets spirited performances from all concerned, including Ben Hood as Contraband, Cassandra Hercules as his hard-nosed adviser and Annie Tyson as Carter’s ferocious campaign manager, but Alderton’s plague-on-both-your-houses approach does nothing to explain or address the mess we are in.
