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Synopsis When the District Council of Wyverdale fails to satisfy a government audit, New Labour high-flyer Alex is sent north from London to formulate a robust recovery plan. But websites, faith festivals and council leaflets in Bengali seem beside the point to the Labour old guard, struggling to provide the basics to an alienated and divided electorate. What begins as a metro-versus-retro comedy of misunderstanding soon becomes a chilling drama about multicultural Britain. Populist politicians play the race card, racial tensions grow and good intentions have fatal consequences. Part of the Travelex £10 season
Dates: Opens 21 September 2005. Sep 12,13,14,15,16,17,19,20,22,27,28,29,30, Oct 1,3,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,14,15,17,18,19,20,21,22 at 19:30. Sep 21 19:00. Sep 17,22,28, Oct 1,8,12,15,19,22 Mats 14:00
It’s not every day that you see a contemporary new play with a cast of 23, nor yet one that costs the majority of the audience just £10 to see: the National Theatre’s annual Travelex £10 season continues to make good on its promise to make epic theatre that is financially accessible to all. And in concluding with David Edgar’s Playing with Fire, the season seeks to make theatre relevant to all as well.
In the slot occupied last year by David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Edgar’s play provides a localised corollary of the kind of religious tensions and racial factions that have led to the frightening destabilising forces behind 9/11 and our own 7/7, even though it's set before either event happened and was written in between the two.
Edgar's intentions are certainly admirable, but the result fatally lacks either theatrical drive or tension. While it briefly coheres at the beginning of the second act with a tribunal enquiry into the background of the riots that occurred in Bradford, Burnley and Oldham in 2001 that could have come straight out of one of the Tricycle’s tribunal plays, it lacks shape and characterisation elsewhere.
It offers its characters less as fully-fleshed individuals than as spokespeople for particular attitudes. And for much of the time its meandering plot could surely really only be of interest to those with a passion for the minutiae of local politics, as it follows a crusading civil servant (Emma Fielding) from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office who is parachuted in to sort out an under-performing local council.
As buzzwords and jargon such as SRB’s (single regeneration budget), “anti-social public space behaviours”, “best value obligations”, “racism awareness”, “performance indicators” and “customer delivery” are freely bandied about, you could be forgiven for thinking you were at a council marketing meeting, not a play.
Yet underneath, there are real questions being debated, about the failure of urban regeneration and the kind of council policies that lead communities to “self-segregate”; and how, as one character astutely points out, there’s harmony between the races only in the drugs trade.
Director Michael Attenborough - playing away from the Almeida that he runs to reunite with Edgar whose Pentecost and The Prisoner’s Dilemma he previously directed for the RSC - keeps the large Olivier stage animated with a constant flow of people that includes high-calibre actors like Fielding, Paul Bhattacharjee as the Labour councillor Fielding’s character falls for, and David Troughton, Oliver Ford Davies and Trevor Cooper as other local councillors.
I'd like to suggest that Mikey's suggestion that people gave this bad reviews because they disagreed with its politics is ridiculous. People are giving it low ratings because, frankly, it's awful. This is the only production that I've seen, in about 16 years of theatregoing, where I felt unable to stay beyond the interval. The first act seemed to last about 8 hours. The auditorium was the emptiest I've ever seen the Olivier, that wondrous performing space. This production is ghastly, I pity the actors. And hate the writer for that hour and a half of my life I'll never get back! - 86.136.191.127)
19 Oct 05
I highly recommend you make an effort to see this before the run ends. When we saw it last Saturday afternoon there were many empty seats, so once again it looks as if the National have failed so sell one of their top productions to their potential audience.
This is the best play about contemporary politics for a long time. It addresses current issues with fairness and thankfully avoids the cheap laughs and easy caricatures so common in the plays of David Hare and other current government-bashers. It also avoids cliched references to Iraq and is not a reworking of a Greek tragedy! Be thankful for an opportunity to see a new play which allows us to think for ourselves and provides considerable insight into current political matters.
I would suggest that those who gave it low ratings below dislike it mainly for its political stance. - 82.35.188.77)
11 Oct 05
I was engrossed by the politics of the play and the way, all too seldom dealt with in any medium, the personal and political worlds interreact. I accept that there did not seem to be enough chemistry between the lovers, partly because of the size of the place (and I did not hear enough of the words to follow everything said) but otherwise, would there were more like this. - 195.93.21.101)
04 Oct 05
It's not too bad but it's too long, it's overcrowded and doesn't allow for any character development, and looks lost on the Olivier stage - as many NT productions do these days. And I didn't come away feeling I'd been told anything. It had promising moments, but didn't really follow up on them. There is mileage in the idea of old and new ideologies clashing, and what can happen when the important things aren't focused on, but this didn't manage to extract much of that mileage, and - disappointingly - I find myself again feeling grateful that tickets are only £10. - 194.80.238.40)
03 Oct 05
This was like cwatching two different plays, a cracking first half with easily identifed characters, but then it seemed in the second half he director went awol and left it to the writer to spout out unreconstructed ideas Good acting, relevant topics but ultimately uninvolving, a real pity - 81.77.144.220)
01 Oct 05
Truly bad. Tedious, wordy, undramatic, cliche characters, ranting performances. The mere fact that the subject matter of a play is something topical does not make it worth watching. Does no-one at the NT look at the text and say - this is below standard? Or watch a rehearsal and say "this will never do"? It would never have made the commercial stage because the management would have known that audiences would walk out in droves. We loyal National Theatre supporters who buy our tickets on the strength of the advance booking programme deserve better. There were plenty of walkouts last night - and many wise theatregoers clearly did not come back for the second half. - 194.203.31.235)
30 Sep 05
The title may subconciously imply an evening of polemic thrills and spills but what we infact get is a considered presentation of the nation four years ago. A government full of good, optimistic intentions but with solutions for a myriad of complex social issues poorly executed. What this play does is expose all of us - not just local or central government - to the notion of taking reponsibility. To look at ourselves first and foremost rather than to immeditately start looking at others for the problems we face. It is a piece of work that, yes, takes its time and may not always be successful in everything it attempts to address but it is an intelligent piece that challenges an audience; encourages us all to confront our prejudices - be they racial, political or religious. The biggest theatrical challenge David Edgar sets is perhaps to demand that a modern audience just sit and listen. As a piece of theatre it may not offer a thrilling drama but life is not always like that. Nor does theatre need to be. Pay a tenner and listen.
It is performed wonderfully by a committed and true ensemble on a stage large enough to give full rein to its ideas.
Reccommended. - 84.67.68.237)
30 Sep 05
Like watching paint dry: one star for Oliver Ford Davies who looked like he could have been in an actual play if given the chance. This is the writer who gave us Pentecost - or was I just young then? - 81.155.234.214)
29 Sep 05
I think many reviews are far too harsh. The second half does intitially lag with Tribunal coverage, seemingly changing the plays direction and drive, but the overall substance is truly exploratory and unwilling to cut corners or make easy assumptions. The issues are extremely complex and thus the play perhaps feels unresolved because, ultimately the subjects it addresses, remain equally so. Excellent acting throughout and dynamic stagecraft create a thoroughly enjoyable and debate-creating evening. - 62.255.32.15)
28 Sep 05
This is a confusing, wordy, and ultimately unsuccessful play that would have worked much better on radio than on stage. Long speeches given at breakneck speed, too little action and why on earth in the second act is the public enquiry before the events it is intended to examine? The actors seem aware of the shortcomings of the play and several seem uncomfortable and unconvincing. In my opinion, this season has not been successful with several poor plays. One can only hope that next season's choices are better, especially now as the South Bank is so much more interesting with the improvements to the ground floor of the RFH. - 217.36.28.3)
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