Democracy

Synopsis

Michael Frayn’s gripping, spy thriller, Democracy, comes to The Old Vic after its highly acclaimed run at Sheffield Theatres.

This timely revival of Frayn’s stylish and sharp-witted thriller takes us into the true life world of political intrigue, espionage and betrayal. Set during the final months in office of the charismatic, nobel prize-winning West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, as suspicions of a Stasi spy infiltrating his precarious coalition government come to a head.

A brilliant ensemble of actors bring to life the fast-paced world of Democracy – Andrew Bridgmont, David Cann, Patrick Drury, Richard Hope, William Hoyland, Ed Hughes, David Mallinson, Aidan McArdle, James Quinn and Rupert Vansittart.

Democracy received its premiere at the National Theatre in 2003 winning the Evening Standard Award and Critics’ Circle Best Play awards and swiftly transferring to the West End due to popular demand.

Multi-award-winning author and playwright, Michael Frayn’s plays include Noises Off (The Old Vic’s production can be currently seen in the West End) The Two of Us, Alphabetical Order, Donkeys’ Years, Clouds, Balmoral, Make or Break, Benefactors, Look Look, Here, Copenhagen and Afterlife. He has also published eleven novels, including recently Skios and Spies which won the Whitbread Novel Award and has written several screen plays including Clockwise starring John Cleese.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 21 June 2012

Nearly ten years after its premiere at the National Theatre, Michael Frayn’s Democracy still impresses and moves me as one of the most enthralling plays about modern politics of the past 20 years.

And since the advent of our own Coalition government, the twists and turns, deals and deviations in the Bonn parliament of Willy Brandt, the German chancellor from 1969 to 1974, take on a special resonance and application, without any added emphasis.

But Democracy is a tragedy, too, in the undermining of Brandt’s great project, that of forming a new fatherland of love and justice while “daring more democracy” with the Communist bloc, by treachery within his own camp.

Paul Miller’s production for the Sheffield Crucible – where it opened in March – may not have the sleek, compelling authority of Michael Blakemore’s original staging, but it is lucidly laid out on the Old Vic stage and given an eerie layer of vocal ...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 5 July 2012:

Political history is a constant source of fascination and in my lifetime there are few stories more intriguing than how the East Germans infiltrated a Stasi spy into the innermost sanctum of the West German Chacellorship. Michael Frayn's Democracy is meticulously researched and presciently captures the machinations of a disunited coalition governemnt clinging to office but, because so much is addressed to the audience, it sometimes feels like a dry lecture. By all accounts Willy Brandt was a charismatic leader but bedevilled by depression, heavy drinking and womanising - astonishingly Frayn posits that it was the threatened exposure of his numerous affairs which finally brought him down rather than the uncovering of Guillaume's espionage. Patrick Drury fails to capture any of these characteristics as a rather grey Brandt and there is almost no sense of betrayal or even surprise when Guillaume's activities are revealed. Democracy is effectively staged but offers a rather colourless portrayal of a remarkable story....

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