I went to see the matinee of Great Britain, which falls somewhere between a farce, satire and a play from the headlines. Dancing around the legal boundaries it tries to tell the story of modern British newspapers and tell the story of Andy Coulson, Rebecca Brooks and Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond.
In some ways it tries to synthesis the political turmoil of a succession of scandals: phone hackings, MPs expenses, the corruption and racisim of the Metropolitan police, Murdoch's television monopolies and a sequence of child murders starting with the Soham murders and intersecting with the rest of the issues with the murder of Milly Dowler. The play feels like an attempt to accuse the complacent British public and to throw back their Little Englander attitudes back in their face by pointing what little of value is left in British society and in particular its institutions.
However it never commits to the satire and instead heads to the safety of comedy. Our leaders are self-serving idiots rather than being truly corrupt or more frightening, ideologically committed to the changes they make in society. It is easy to see a series of tactical expediencies as not something fundamental rotten in the British character but rather something temporary and an aberration that will soon pass in the face of fair play and the green and pleasant land.
The vision of Britain it paints is bleak and fundamentally depressing but it was telling that during the performance the audience laughed readily and easily as if they were in on the joke rather than its target.
It uses archetypes and caricatures which are easily dismissed, the truth is more complicated and far less amusing. Also telling the play is stuffed full of monologues which indicate how little faith the writer has in the drama to convey a message.
The cast is pretty good and obviously attention has been focused on Billie Piper's lead role (she makes the transition to stage well with excellent presence) but the cast is far stronger than the material. Robert Glenister does a great job of portraying a tabloid editor, filthy, furious and out of his element once he leaves the newsroom.
The final monologue is the one where Piper's identity as a celebrity makes the accusations more interesting. As Piper's character justifies her intrusion into the lives of people like Piper herself we get close to what the play could have been, interrogating the nature of celebrity culture and what it is doing to all the participants in it.
Great Britain left me with the desire to see a play with a really great analysis of the role of the press in society and another that tries to stake of what Austerity Britain has become.