Michael Coveney: Election fever grips theatreland

Next week's opening of James Graham's The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse is just one of several plays around the country reflecting both a state of excitement and of apathy in the General Election a week today on 7 May. A cast of 50, including Judi Dench, her daughter Finty Williams, Mark Gatiss and Nina Sosanya will be milling around in a Lambeth polling booth – "Welcome to Hell, SE1" cried a drunk vagrant in (not at) last night's premiere of Everyman at the National – and on Election night itself, the show is live-streamed on More4 to coincide exactly with the last 90 minutes of voting before the polls close at 10pm.

In The Times this morning, director Josie Rourke reveals she usually goes out to vote after her tea (you still call your dinner your tea in Salford, where she comes from) and this year it will be cast for Labour. No surprises there, then. But will there be any more on the night? Will the Scottish National Party wipe out the Labour Party in Scotland and will this lead to a coalition of the SNP and Labour in a close call? Or will an increasingly confident Tory party win a clear majority?

It's the economy, stupid, and that's the key issue, despite all the kerfuffle over who may or may not take best care of the National Health Service, the Tory promise of a referendum on Europe, and the looming spectre on the right of Nigel Farage's UKIP party, which has certainly caught the fancy of folk in the South East and even in some northern constituencies where race and immigration are tinderbox issues. But I reckon many UKIP voters will defect back to the Tories at the last minute, and I'd even bet on Farage not winning in his South Thanet constituency.

The big theatre yesterday, apart from the opening of Everyman, was the meeting on YouTube between the comedian Russell Brand, who has about ten million followers on Twitter, and Labour leader Ed Miliband, who has a mere fraction of that number. Brand advocates not voting and proclaims he has never voted for anyone in his life – as if that was anything to be proud of – claiming that people feel disenfranchised because "unelected, powerful entities are controlling Britain." He meant big business corporations, not the intelligence services. Miliband's response was to suddenly turn into a phoney Cockney, chumming down to such an absurd extent that, at the end of the chat in Brand's Shoreditch kitchen, Brand appeared to endorse the "Milibrand."

Daily Mail critic Quentin Letts, who has been darting around the country filing colourful reports from the hustings and dashing back for first nights in town, had a field day, likening the pair to the dimwits in the pub on The Two Ronnies: "Mr Miliband offered something about non-dom tax avoiders. 'Absolutely,' agreed Brand, who used to bed the socialite daughter of notorious non-dom tax avoider Jimmy Goldsmith. And licentious, leery Brand begged Mr Miliband to prevent 'the very fabric of society being torn apart…'", which is sort of what happens in Everyman, summarised by Q as "foul-mouthed, moralistic, atheistic, theatrical… but it is also a dumbed-down jumble."

We used to have the former actress Glenda Jackson as our MP, but then they re-drew the boundaries and we got jolly old Frank Dobson instead. Glenda's leaving parliament – no news of a return to the stage; wouldn't that be something? – and her marginal seat may be conceded in any slight swing to the right or the Lib Dems. Dobson's retiring, too, so we're stuck with a solid Labour candidate, Keir Starmer (a QC and human rights lawyer who prefers not to use his knighthood in public), though we also have the Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, offering her services, and she's had quite an impressive campaign after a shaky start and a few howlers. So far, not a squeak from the Tories or Lib Dems.

This week's The Stage carries a detailed response to a questionnaire from all seven major parties (including Plaid Cymru, the Greens and UKIP). Ed Vaizey, the Tory culture minister, says that "people have got to get out of this mentality that if the arts council budget goes up, the arts are healthy and if the arts council budget goes down, the arts are in crisis, because it is complete nonsense"; while his Labour shadow, Chris Bryant – who once wrote a pretty good biography of Glenda Jackson, as it happens – says all the "right" (ie, "left") things about the social value of the arts, opportunities for children, protection of the arts across the UK, not just in London, and a time limit (four weeks) on unpaid internships.

Good answers, too, to "What was the last thing you saw in the theatre?" Vaizey: The Twits. Bryant: Women on the Verge. UKIP's Peter Whittle: My Night with Reg. Plaid Cymru's Bethan Jenkins: Made in Dagenham. Lib Dems' Jane Bonham Carter: La Fille Mal Gardée at the ROH. Fiona Hyslop (SNP): The Slab Boys at the Glasgow Citizens. Martin Dobson (Green Party): "The most excellent production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Liverpool Everyman." Nice one all round, I think.