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Author
David Edgar
Directed
by
Michael Attenborough
Designed
by
Lez Brotherston
Alex
Clifton
Emma Fielding
George
Aldred
David Troughton
Riaz
Rafique
Paul Bhattacharjee
Frank
Wilkins
Oliver Ford
Davies
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The
National Theatre
12
Sept - 22 Oct 2005 |
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Grant
the assumption that it is
the responsibility of local
and national government to
solve the problems that ethnic
and religious divisions cause,
and the premise for this long,
word-filled, complex and absorbing
play is given. This is a recent
assumption in the history
of these islands, a 1960s-onwards
assumption, which we have
been required to make because
that is when diversity started
to become a problem (remember
Enoch Powell?) and because
the names of Notting Hill,
Brixton, Toxteth, St Paul's,
Bradford, and now '7/7', together
constitute a litany of symptoms,
in which the disease process
includes the BNP, the Daily
Mail's scare-mongering anti-immigration
campaigns, and more latterly
militant Islam
David Edgar's big play is
about more things than this,
however, because as with Ezekiel's
bones, everything connects
to everything else. Political
pieties at the level of national
government pour de haut en
bas onto struggling local
government, unbalance its
pot, and thereby exacerbate
the very difficulties they
are intended to abate.
Not that all is hunky-dory
in local government, in whose
ambiguous swamps dinosaurs
enact the narcissism of small
differences and in the process
drown everything else in their
noise. With too much to do
and too little money to do
it, local government in towns
with poor and internally diverse
communities is on a hiding
to nothing. Whitehall wisdom
appears in the form of an
advisor ‚ in this case the
excellent Emma Fielding as
Alex Clifton ‚ and the local
councillors are forced to
play ball, some of it mere
jargon-spinning, some of it
consequential enough to cause
a riot in the town, thereby
ripping the fabric of community
relations to shreds. That,
David Edgar tells us after
respecting all the nuances
and the claims of both sides
of the story, is a mistake
that central government can
and does make locally.
This could be shorter play
without losing anything essential,
and even with some doubling-up
it needs a very big cast for
its thirty-eight characters.
But these are minor cavils.
With superb performances from
Emma Fielding, David Troughton
as the Labour council leader
George Aldred, Paul Bhattacharjee
as the sensible and attractive
but ultimately loyalty-torn
councillor Riaz Rafique, and
Oliver Ford Davies as the
unexpectedly potent and disruptive
Frank Wilkins, the play never
loses pace and tension, and
the complexities it explores
are conveyed with great skill
in the writing and acting.
Above all, this is the kind
of play that the National
Theatre in important part
exists to produce, bravely
and intelligently tackling
major contemporary issues,
and providing a magnificent
platform for debate about
them. This is what theatre
is centrally about, and Edgar's
chastening drama powerfully
reaffirms the fact.
AC
Grayling |
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