Director: Nicholas Hytner
Writer: Richard Bean
Starring: Lucy Punch, Iain Mitchell, Aaron Neil, Ben Mansfield, Andrew Woodall, Rupert Vansittart, Dermot Crowley, Robert Glenister, William Chubb.
Synopsis: Set in a fast paced, quick talking news room, Great Britain follows an ambitious news editor who stumbles across the ability to hack phones.
Great Britain arrives at The Theatre Royal Haymarket on the back of some wonderful exposure and a lot of love pushed towards its satirical take on the world of Britain today. ‘Press. Police. Politics’ is the tagline, and each one is deconstructed and overblown to the point of absurd comedy that has a worrying sense of truth behind it all.
Richard Bean’s play is certainly a brave and bold attack on the British media and other such institutions, but it’s also something we are all aware of. There are many times when the script dances into serious territory, but rather than providing a thought provoking pause, it instead crashes the entire play into a bleak and uncomfortable truth. These sections don’t work as they are usually delivered by heavy handed messages directed straight at the audience. Not only will the audience already be aware of all the hypocritical mud slinging, underhanded methods, and severe bias that plagues the press, but the comedy itself is obvious.
That’s not always a bad thing, and in no way is Bean attempting to weave a subtle satire of intrigue and wit. Instead, this is a balls out comedy with jokes as obvious as its message. The play actually works best when at its most absurd, most evident in the classic character of Aaron Neil’s Police Commissioner Sully Kassam. Kassam is comedy gold, always mixing up his words and having very little understanding as to what is going on. After a third innocent black man is shot Kassam notes “I wish I could say just as many white men had been shot.”
As the play’s protagonist Paige Britain, Lucy Punch offers up a narcissistic and selfish character who will do anything to make it to the top. She fucks, invades privacy, commits crimes, and hides behind a shield of “public interest.” Punch works well as a comedic lead, so when her words become crueler and more cutting it becomes harder to accept the delivery as something more than preachy. Scattered about the rest of the cast are a series of memorable characters each brought to life by excellent performances.
Great Britain does a great job of never feeling restrained, and by a series of well placed transparent screens and busy backgrounds, you get a sense of a bustling office allowing for life to surge throughout. These screens also display some of the funniest moments in a series of inventive transitions. These transitions take the form of mock-newspaper headlines, hacked calls, and even YouTube inspired skits of reedited press conferences.
Great Britain may not be great, but it is certainly good, and there are lines of dialogue that rival DOCTOR STRANGELOVE’s “You can’t fight in here, this is the war room.” But for every classic line, there’s an older joke you’ve heard before. Very of the moment, you’ll definitely relate to this fast paced comedy filled with non-stop humour that sometimes misses, and sometimes hits hilarity hard.
[usr=3]Great Britain is currently playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 10th January. More details here!
