PARTY GAMES Theatre Royal Windsor & touring

TWO YEARS AFTER THE NEXT ELECTION..

Here, a mere meringue’s throw from Eton itself, is an imaginary Prime Minister of that ilk. Tidier in particular person and with a contact extra integrity than the final one, however personally virtually as insouciant, as proof against studying red-box bumf , and as prodigal with tags from Aristotle and Virgil. It’s an unBoris.

This is a touring play from Michael McManus, a veteran if bruised political insider, centrist-sensible himself however fascinated by the mechanisms and personalities. I relatively preferred his “An Honourable Man” (https://theatrecat.com/tag/an-honourable-man/) which like this one was brooding on the potential of a centre occasion, and like his quote from Mencken “for every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, clear and wrong”. Not to say the deathless comparability of referendum-year Britain as “a cat which doesn’t know whether it wants to be in or out, so just sits around licking its balls”. He additionally had a small hit with Maggie And Ted simply after the lockdowns.

But a tsunami of mad politics has rolled over us now, and it’s a courageous factor to show Uk politics into unbelievable farce, provided that it does it so nicely with out help . And an ungainly factor too, when actual wars and savage partisanship break up us nastily for actual. All this McManus acknowledged in a quick q and a the evening I went. But hey, generally you gotta snigger simply so that you dont cry. And perhaps audiences usually tired of Westminster have ideas prompted by jokey drama: it doesn’t need to be James Graham or certainly the immortal House of Cards that make individuals suppose.

And in that enterprise you want an affable comedian presence like Matthew Cottle ((deathlessly humorous as Primce Edward in The Windsors). He is John, chief (to his personal shock) of the brand new One Nation occasion, which after the 2026 implosion of each Labour and Conservative events, has landed a hung parliament full of name new , massively inexperienced MPs barely below the management of a camp tarantula-wielding chief whip, with a tricky Northern Labour matriarch as deputy PM and an indignant SNP redusing to be purchased off with out one other referendum.

The meat of the scenario, although, and the principle driver of its drama, is the presence of Ryan Early because the Spad, Seth , the Cummings/ Campbell adviser. He is horrifying: manic, by no means nonetheless, is aware of he’s proper, indignant when challenged , unelected however dictatorial, he twists and jerks and poses and shouts and factors: the very inverse of the smiling, insouciant, punning, jokily unworried PM. The PPS and deputy PM and others detest Seth, and his intuition to interrupt issues, court docket hassle, fire up anarchic occasions and mess about with the very structure appals them. What the PM jokingly calls his “Fannymesto” – good gag – is extremely Brexit neocon brutality disguised as centrism. He bas introduced in an AI asistant which crunches knowledge and operates solely inside his framework: it’s known as MediaAnnie and is kind of humorous very often. Meanwhile all of the outdated jokes get an airing – about faux sincerity and so on – and there are some good passages as employees attempt to preserve the PM on message and he breaks away and charms the voters once more. Two crises happen, a toxic volcano cloud which could trigger lockdown, and an incident with the King’s automobile hitting a protester.

There have been extra laughs on the outdated too-familiar jokes than I anticipated, from a reasonably full Windsor viewers . And I would really like McManus to jot down extra political performs. But paradoxically, I don’t need them to be comedies. I feel he has issues to say – this grew to become very apparent in an amazing rant close to the tip when Seth the Spad has been disposed of. But daft farce dilutes it. Even delivered by the divine Cottle..

RATING 3