Torben Betts has spoken of the frustrations of being perceived as “Alan Ayckbourn’s lovechild”, though it’s not hard to see how such comparisons are made. It was Ayckbourn who first spotted Betts’s potential and offered him a residency at the Stephen Joseph theatre, where his debut, A Listening Heaven, was produced in 1999.
Yet there has always been a more overtly political aspect to Betts’s work: the playwright’s mission is to smuggle left-leaning, state-of-the-nation analysis into cosy, domestic comedy. His latest play confirms that he could indeed be the lovechild of both Alan Ayckbourn and David Hare.
Betts’s usual method is to throw characters of radically different ideological persuasions into the melting pot and to let them stew. Here, the stepdaughter of a senior Tory politician arrives for a country house gathering with her latest boyfriend, a Liverpudlian drug counsellor, in tow. But whereas Betts’s What Falls Apart, showed the embarrassment of a resolutely old-school Labour grandee, The National Joke appears to be an attempt to infiltrate the mindset of the other side.
Rupert St John-Green, whom we first encounter discussing his imminent knighthood while on the phone to central office, fancies himself as a man of the people. So much so that he decides to go down to the beach and glad-hand constituents who have gathered to witness a solar eclipse. He returns furious, dishevelled and already the subject of a social media frenzy for having referred to a couple of sun-worshippers as “oiks”.
Philip Bretherton’s suave performance makes it easy to believe in the vanity and arrogance of a preening public figure who loathes the public he is appointed to serve. Yet it is much harder to attach credibility to his naivety. Rupert’s astonishment to find that he has “gone virile or something” elicits a moderate laugh. Is it really possible to believe that any senior cabinet figure, however self-absorbed, would need to have the concept of Twitter explained to them throughout the course of the action?
Rupert’s scornful reference to a staunchly socialist leader of the opposition as a “national joke” indicates that the play is clearly intended to be set in the present day.
If the satire feels shaky, Betts is much better at the quiet, internal politics of despair. In Henry Bell’s neatly acted production, Cate Hamer touchingly divulges the wooden-spoon role of being second wife to such an appalling egotist. Annabel Leventon as her tweedy mother, and Catherine Lamb as her wayward daughter indicate that people born with all due privilege in life have the capacity to become hopelessly adrift.
• At Stephen Joseph theatre, Scarborough, until 20 August. Box office: 01723 370541.
