How topical to see David Hare’s play The Absence of War on almost the eve of the 2015 Election and it becomes clear the more the play progresses that the machinery that drives all parties to success or failure in elections is one and the same, no matter how different the policies or manifestos of each involved. In the end, we the people have to make our decision after listening to one man, the leader, proclaiming his party’s intentions and all hangs on his ability to deliver the message in a way that convinces us to vote for him, and the party.
The play charts to the progress of George Jones, the leader of the Labour Party, who despite his own forthright and likeable personality is manipulated to project what his team of advisors and secretaries think the electorate want to see. And because he is an honest man at heart with a passionate belief in the party and its aims he cannot dumb down his own responses. Reece Dinsdale gives a great performance as Jones, always verging on being out of control and bursting with frustration at his powerless situation when it should be he who calls the shots.
Amiera Darwish has his possessive Press Secretary, Mary Housego off to a tee, fluttering around him like vigilant moth, and admitting that part of her job is to have no private life at all. Cyril Nri as George’s manipulative and slightly dislikeable political advisor, Oliver Dix, illustrates the frustration of being the backroom boy when you know you could do the job better yourself, or so you imagine, and Maggie McCarthy as Gwenda Aaron his unflappable diary secretary keeps things in good running order. Barry McCarthy is brilliant as the Rt Hon Bryden Thomas who understands the pressures on George during the campaign which admittedly has begun to go wrong, and his entreated plea to “just leave him alone” was both timely and sensible.
Mike Britton’s set very much helps to convey the sense that this is the early 90s pagers are in evidence and Ceefax on TV screens. Its starkness conveys the serious message too, and in the final scenes when the battle is lost, George is the deflated puppet of the party and blame is looking to be apportioned, the question “what now” hangs in the air.
This is an excellent production, made all the better for being seen at such an appropriate time.