Writer: Oscar Brudenall-Jones
Director: Elham Ehsas
It is a lock-in that feels more like torture than merriment in this drab comedy, which attempts, but misses, to skewer the divisions in British politics.
Oscar Brudenall-Jones’ script, littered with cliches, centres upon a small pub in the fictional constituency of Alderbrook North, whose MP promises the locals their own sovereignty, making the tiny town independent, so long as they follow his increasingly tyrannical rule. While the premise has some initial intrigue, this is quickly obliterated by clumsy dialogue, mean-spirited characterisation and a plot that struggles to make a point.
The town is under the stewardship of Scott Slocombe’s arrogant MP Tim Yates, an outsider to the town himself, who quickly wins over its population with promises of kicking out those who are not from there and jobs for local people. Tim’s character is clearly a riff off political figures whom the play and parts of society find distasteful. There is some success in Slocombe’s portrayal of Tim, who captures a politician who really is only in it for himself. Yet as the play whizzes through its less than an hour runtime, Tim soon becomes a yelling gun-wielding maniac, an all too obvious caricature which does little to say anything meaningful, weaving in a bizarre murder plot into an already chaotic piece.
It is the presentation of the local community that feels the most banal. The punters are quick to shout xenophobic and racist rhetoric, which are treated, at times, like punchlines, and while this is a comedy, this feels a complete misread. Middle-aged, flag-waving couple David (Chris Cordell) and Jackie (Juliet Prew) celebrate Tim’s reinstatement of allowing smoking in pubs with simple-minded glee, while barmaid Shelley (Sonja Doubleday) nods and grins, swept up by Tim’s persuasive charm. These become stereotypes of ‘little’ England, with audiences seemingly directed to laugh at these people and their cheap jibes rather than anything else. Where the play sets up a potentially interesting focus on the attitudes of such communities, it soon unravels with clumsy one-liners and predictable cliches.
There are some glimmers of intrigue, though. Gulliver McGrath’s young Connor attempts to resist Tim’s sway before his character is swept up in a daft murder plot, while Natasha Culzac’s Jenny, a reporter who has come to interview Tim, is a calm voice among the chaos. It is a play that has potential and is certainly delivered with eagerness by its cast, but needs work in refining what it actually wants to achieve. Elham Ehsas’s direction of the final moments is nicely poetic, though, which the play could do more of, with Union Jacks scattered across the stage, following an assault of strobe lighting that goes on for too long.
Midway through the play, Tim bemoans that the local Alderbrook brew is off, yet unfortunately, it is not just the pub’s ale that falls flat in this bland play. Tim’s rise to power is clearly a warning shot against following such hollow but charismatic leaders, yet it is a misfire that tries to do too much and achieves, much like Tim, very little.
Runs until 22 November 2025
