Reports from Stratford last year suggested that David Edgar's latest play, dealing with the comical but crucial nature of peace negotiations in the post-cold war world, presented something of a dilemma for theatre critics. People were thrilled to fall upon a genuinely intelligent and far-reaching political play, but noticed that while it was a good old-fashioned night, it wasn't half as enjoyable as Shopping and Fucking or My Fair Lady.
Almost eight months on, Edgar's play turns out to be as riveting and enjoyable as any play in London - and I say this even though three hours of non-stop talk, talk, talk (some of it in Eastern European languages) usually makes me feel faint. Penny Downie leads a blisteringly good cast as a Finnish diplomat attempting to broker a deal between the "mindless terrorists" and "hatchet-faced oppressors" of an imaginary former Soviet republic, where the Muslim minority is fighting for independence.
It seems unlikely that the play has changed greatly since its July 2001 premiere. The world, however, has, and while there is no negotiating with suicide bombers who fly planes into tall buildings, we all have a greater emotional investment in the settlement of conflicts around the world, particularly at those hot spots where the west and the Islamic world meet.
The performances have no doubt matured, bringing a complex humanity to characters that you might otherwise say are simply there to serve the playwright's testing theses. In a play that is so much about the impossible gap between what one side says during negotiations and what the other side hears, I loved the fact that so many of the characters' personal relationships have unspoken depths: it's as if they can deal with the riddling rhetoric of political negotiation, but not the unadorned language of everyday emotion.
This may not be a great play, but it is definitely a play of the moment. It is serious- minded yet light-hearted, and it makes you laugh, not least when exposing the three great lies of the world: the cheque is in the mail, my wife doesn't understand me, I'm from the UN and I am here to help you.
· In rep until April 6. Box office: 020-7638 8891.
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