Socialism. It's not a word you hear much in the theatre these days. Even 7:84, the supposedly leftwing theatre company, tends to cop out by arguing that the personal is political, thereby justifying production of pretty much any play in the western canon.
Not so here. In Martin McCardie's new comedy featuring three characters whose very raison d'être is to prove their socialist credentials. In today's anodyne political climate, it seems almost vulgar that they should care. Surely even the late John McGrath, 7:84's founder, would have rated this a good night out.
The play's relationship to the book of the same name by Mark Steel, the comedian and erstwhile Guardian columnist, is less than direct but more than tangential. McCardie has taken Steel's idea of looking first-hand at 25 years of political activity, shifted it north and packaged it around the reunion after a 13-year separation of an activist, a prospective member of the Scottish parliament and a leftwing comedian.
Occasional passages from the book wheedle their way into the play - in particular Steel's assessment that the New Labour mission is based on a philosophy of pessimism - but the new vantage point allows references to the Scottish Socialists (and their love of sun-tan parlours), Militant in Glasgow and Margaret Thatcher's unwelcome appearance at the Scottish cup final of 1988. There are as many gags by McCardie as there are from Steel.
There's a touch of contrivance about the situation, not least because all the interesting action is in the past, but there's a genuinely engaging debate about the compromises of career politicians set against the absolutism of the activist. And in Stuart Davids's production, Frank Gallagher gives a superb performance as an angry and witty radical, with punchy support from Neil McKinven and Maureen Carr.
· At Dundee Rep until Saturday. Box office: 01382 223530. Then touring.
