Project Dictator  
New Diorama Theatre, London 
  

A NEW double act play from the Rhum + Clay theatre company, Project Dictator puts forward the hardly original idea that the unsatisfactory disarray of democracy is preferable to the potentially deadly structure of a one-party state.  
  
It sets off as a slapstick show within a show, with Matt Wells in the lead as a vacuous senior politician, providing little more to the populace than soundbites and platitudes.   
  
When Julian Spooner, who plays all the other parts, breaks the fourth wall to halt the performance and rip up the script, he rewrites himself into the role of a populist leader who promises to cut through the verbiage.   
  
By the end of the first act, however, Spooner’s creation has turned out to be of no more use to the public than his predecessor, and has also slipped into authoritarian behaviour.  
  
The second half produces a dramatic change of pace and scene, with both actors now sitting in their dressing room after having been subjected to some kind of brutal re-education programme.  
  
Provided with an entirely new script, they’re instructed to get on with it by a disembodied totalitarian voice, and reluctantly begin their performance. When they falter, the potential consequences are dire. Yet in the end they find a simple way to fight back against the new power.  
  
The squabbling, weak politicians in the first act make us despair of the democratic process. Yet when we’re plunged into the alternative world of a more straightforwardly powerful system, we see that things could be much worse.   
  
With a conclusion in which solidarity shows itself as a significant force, what the play seems to suggest is that we need more togetherness in our democratic process — with much less political point scoring, more honesty and more pulling in the same direction.

Overall, then, the message is effectively delivered. 

But as a piece of theatre Project Dictator is less successful. The first act has a strong emphasis on farce, yet much of the clowning is frenetically clumsy and most of the jokes fall flat. The second is contrastingly arresting, with a different, serious kind of performance art that’s more precise and absorbing.  

To some extent this is deliberate, juxtaposing the muddled, unpredictable aspects of democracy with the more orderly business of dictatorship. Nonetheless, if somehow the play could have been set up with a less annoyingly frivolous first half it would be far more impressive and ultimately more substantial.  

Peter Mason  

Runs until April 30: newdiorama.com/whats-on/project-dictator