In a speech to the Royal Society of the Arts last year, then-culture minister Ed Vaizey said the British art establishment was an echo-chamber for “relentlessly left-wing groupthink”.
What he would have liked to see in the theatre world, for instance, was a wider range of political views represented on the stage.
His suggestion of a “pro-foxhunting play” was never likely to get off the ground. But he, a Remain supporter, was on to something in his desire to see a play that could understand people who voted to leave the European Union.
Well look no further, Ed. Your Brexit play might have arrived.
National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris and Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy have put together My Country; a work in progress, which opened recently at the National’s Dorfman Theatre. But the authorship of the play, for the most part, is the work of British voters themselves.
The play begins with Britannia, played by Penny Layden, strutting about in a red, white and blue-plumed legionary helmet and playing a sort of patriotism mix-tape over the theatre stereo: Elgar, Greensleeves, bagpipes, plus “Two Tribes” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
She is interrupted by the arrival of regions she has called “at short notice” to decide the referendum result.
There’s Caledonia (“It’s what I like about him, his independence”), Cymru (he sings; he talks about the rugby),the South West (Morris dancing!), Northern Ireland (Irish dancing!), East Midlands, and the North East (getting there late; alluding to the existence of a pizza with chips on top).
It sets itself up like an old-school morality play – places and traits personified their actors. So it’s refreshing that its message isn’t crudely put forth, and is arrived at almost obliquely.
The regions are asked to speak for their citizens, “not to agree”, but to demonstrate the variety of views so as to better understand them.
What follows is a collection of polyphonic, intersecting snippets from real interviews with the public mixed with soundbites from politicians.
The former are amusingly acted – with a good ear for original disjointed, spontaneous speech, without much framing or prejudice.
In fact, at the very beginning, you don’t know the views of the speakers at all: though we might get a sense of for whom these people might vote, it’s too early to call.
What you get instead is the speakers humanised, telling their stories. There are well-considered as well as misinformed views from both sides. If some seem utterly ridiculous or irrelevant, that’s because they are.
Bendy bananas are cited. People from small towns blame globalisation for their local rugby club moving one town along. The “I didn’t know how to vote until I got in the booth” position makes an appearance.
If anyone comes under explicit attack, it is members of the political class who lead both campaigns, impersonated, often excellently, by Britannia. So what emerges speaks more clearly about class than it does about the EU debate.
It invites us to look at a group of posh men playing House of Cards with the country’s future, and how this has lead to a divided country rather than a divided Europe. And this, for now, takes priority.
As does an internal sense of what it means to be British, which varies very specifically from person to person. And it is this that makes My Country: A Work in Progress feel fair and well put together. People’s pride in their country, or lack thereof, is presented, celebrated and questioned in equal measure.
And at the end, Britannia gets upset about this division. “I am your vital quarrels with yourself” she says as she expounds on the beauties of the landscape. The rest of the regions try comfort her with gifts of Scotch Whiskey, stovies and a dance off.
But perhaps the best way to comfort the country in times of division is – as we are invited to at the start of the play – just to “listen”.
- My Country; a work in progress, is showing at the National Theatre until March 22nd, and will then tour the UK
