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The Absence of War: Bristol Old Vic/Touring
Doomed to gloom: David Hare’s play about Labour’s 1992 election campaign makes
for a pessimistic theatrical experience, says GORDON PARSONS
3/5
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GIVEN the impending election, it comes as no surprise that Headlong Theatre has revived The Absence of War, the final play in David Hare’s state-of-the-nation trilogy.
It’s based on his experiences as an inside observer of Labour’s disastrous 1992 election defeat, which Hare described later as “the moment when a generation gave up on politics,” a disillusionment deepened by the advent of Tony Blair.
There is a doom-laden, prophetic quality to Hare’s picture of the Labour Party machine at the time.
Terrified of right-wing press domination, it’s determined to hold its leader to a safe middle ground and eschew any mention of policies that might frighten an electorate it neither trusts nor respects.
That leader, George Jones — played with a resigned, laconic cynicism by Trevor Fox, who stood in for the indisposed Reece Dinsdale at the performance I saw — is a million miles from Neil Kinnock.
Encouraged to give his own voice rein he urges his audience, in a faltering yet passionate appeal, to recognise that his socialism “is to do with helping people.”
Kinnock would not have crumpled like Jones does in a TV interview with an oily, Robin Day-like pundit. Yet there is a fiery moment when he explodes at his imposed impotence: “Defence! Abandoning nuclear weapons, which everyone knows we should do. I could make a great speech about that. My God! If only I could!”
But the key election policy, and even this is tactically denied, is the abolishing of mortgage tax relief.
The production boasts a fine supporting cast and there’s incidental fun in relating figures to their real-life counterparts. Gyur Sarossy as Malcolm Pryce, Jones’s shadow chancellor, reminds those old enough of John Smith confronting the successful “Labour’s tax bombshell” campaign by the Tories.
But it’s a play which will seem datedly tame to an audience tuned in to shows such as The Thick of It.
Hare’s message is not a cheerful one and the defeated Jones’s ironic declaration: “Let’s join the Tory Party. And then let’s all fuck it up” is certainly no rallying cry for a brave new world.
Tours until May 2, details: headlong.co.uk
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