It's the kind of timing writers dream of: a play about a Labour government, fast waning in popularity and racked by internal power struggles, opening in the week New Labour's spinners and weavers try to restore the party's credibility after the PM's humiliation by a room full of WI ladies.
In this, poet Sean O'Brien's verse drama about the past, present and future of the Labour party, is blessed. The already dark humour running through this evening of revenge-tragedy-meets-political-satire is intensified; the more extreme Machiavellian machinations make horribly perfect sense. But given that this is a play written largely in rhyming couplets using iambic pentameter, a bigger question than its verisimilitude hangs over the production. Put bluntly, does it work as theatre?
Largely, yes, thanks to O'Brien's dextrous, slick verse, so deftly handled it feels like amplified speech, not forced, stilted words divorced from life. Inevitably there's the odd moment when a rhyme declares itself a tad too forcefully, but these are rare. And there are several outstanding performances, notably from David Whitaker as alcoholic poet William Farr (a stupendously good drunk), Deka Walmsley as Home Secretary Jack Jackson, and Donald McBride as the sadistic doctor of spin.
Ironically, it's not the use of verse that feels unreal but, in the end, the political analysis. This is a gripping drama that John Webster would have been proud of, with its descent into murky revelation and sudden, violent deaths, but politically it feels archetypal. It is universal, rather than specifically about the here and now. Close to television's House of Cards in atmosphere, this could well have been a play about the Tories in power, save for a few clips of miners' strike footage.
Some of the characters veer close to the cliches of the genre, including Daisy, the oversexed, posh, power-crazed PPS and even the spin doctor, although he's well played. There are welcome departures, though - the home secretary's wife is a rounded, complex and credible character; her secret daughter, Miranda, is a neat nod to the Monica Lewinsky debacle. As a drama about the evil that men and women do for power, this is a great evening's entertainment. As a comment on where the Labour party is, and might go, it just misses the surreal, scary mark.
Until June 29. Box office: 0191-261 2694.
