This House

Synopsis

1974. The UK faces economic crisis and a hung parliament. In a culture hostile to cooperation, it's a period when votes are won or lost by one, when there are fist fights in the bars and when sick MPs are carried through the lobby to register their vote. Let those on the continent cooperate and hug and kiss each other on the ruddy cheek. Here in Britain, one party governs and we get things done. It's a time when a staggering number of politicians die, and the building creaks under idiosyncrasies and arcane traditions. A minority government? No one with any sense or gumption gives you more than a matter of weeks. You're gonna fall, and fast, and hard. So start finding things to land on. Now. Set in the engine rooms of Westminster, James Graham's This House strips politics down to the practical realities of those behind the scenes: the whips who roll up their sleeves and on occasion bend the rules to shepherd and coerce a diverse chorus of MPs within the Mother of all Parliaments.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 10 October 2012

You enter the Cottesloe chamber and take your seats on green leather benches, with the Speaker's chair at the head of the room and a large projection of Big Ben looming overhead. Yes, you are in the mother of all parliaments for the mother of all sessions.

For this is the House of Commons, invaded by the quarrelsome party whips in the period from 1974 to the advent of Mrs Thatcher, an era of hung parliaments, the wounded governments of Heath, Wilson and Callaghan, the Lib/Lab alliance, the three-day week and John Stonehouse.

John who? James Graham’s lively play, directed by Jeremy Herrin as a sort of violent political cabaret, is flecked with surreal sequences, such as the fake suicide of that disgraced former postmaster general and Czech spy on a Miami beach, a swaying dance ensemble of new-term MPs, a punch-up at the despatch box, the wheeling in of bed-bound invalids to make up the v...

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Latest User Review

Andie - 20 November 2012:

Nothing short of perfection in every respect, completely riveting start to finish....

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