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The early ’90s were not easy times for Labour. In 1992, Neil Kinnock’s party suffered a crushing defeat, and it seemed, after more than a decade of Tory rule, that Labour would remain forever unelectable.
Now, of course, we know better – in a mere five years, Tony Blair was set to rebrand the party, and lead it storming into government. But in 1994, when David Hare wrote this play, the third in a loose state-of-the-nation trilogy, its central question – how a passionately socialist leader can win an election without burying himself in the middle ground – was still painfully relevant.
The remarkable thing about this new production – directed by Jeremy Herrin for his Headlong theatre company, in collaboration with Sheffield Theatres and the Rose – is how fresh and relevant that question actually still feels.
Our setting is the inner circle surrounding party leader George Jones (the excellent Reece Dinsdale), in the frenetic run-up to an election. Advertising guru Lindsay Fontaine (Charlotte Lucas) arrives with some unsettling ideas about how to win: chiefly, how to deal with the fact that George comes across well in private, but seems unable to communicate his passion to the general public.
It’s a conundrum that still faces current Labour leader Ed Miliband – just last week, in the BBC debate, the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon challenged him to be ‘bolder’ in standing up to David Cameron – and Hare’s play offers some fascinating context for the current election.
Theatrically, this production lacks a degree of oomph – Headlong’s characteristically high energy, underpinned by innovative visual and sound design, dissipates in several of the long, verbose scenes, and the performances are not uniformly convincing. But this remains an insightful, even moving play about what it means to lead – and vote for – the Labour party, and its revival is nicely timed.