A WEAPONS INSPECTOR CALLS.

London

A WEAPONS INSPECTOR CALLS
by Justin Butcher

Theatre Technis To 10 January 2004
Mon-Sat 7.30pm no performances 24-28 December, 1 January
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7387 6617
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 December

When so much power is so greatly misused, what can the powerless do but laugh?The kind of low-level, all-out attack Justin Butcher launches on Britain's Prime Minister and the current US administration is cheap, hit-and-miss, more bludgeon than skewer and so it ought to be.

It's the kind of cheap one-sided propaganda political theatre companies used to tour to working men's clubs, community centres and village halls. If only this could do the same get out where the people are rather than nestle in central London offering high-risk self-satisfaction overload as it's recalled over a cappuccino/latte while reading today's Guardian or Independent. Guilty, on most counts.

Still, it needs to be said. However weak some jokes, or beside the point others. At full-length you're doing well with an ace one-liner every half hour; a decent stab at midway's a bonus. This show just about gets there.

Its iconography's drawn less from Priestley than Stephen Daldry's famous Inspector Calls. Unlike the original, this Inspector's easily drugged, providing one of the best scenes as the White House criminals sneak in to rip allegations from his report. It's beautifully characterised Rummy's anger, Pops' affable agreement with the charges, - and Dubya, daft enough to up the evidence against him by scrawling amendments.

Rupert Mason comes closest to characterisation: a predatory beast, fixed snarl on his face, ever-waiting to pounce, menacingly spitting out sentences. In contrast Matthew Dominic's Arnie is all pose, his predatory quality all sexual. It's a one-joke role, but that's the whole point. Such people exist. In America, they get elected.

Somehow Britain's PM is upstaged by his feng-shui wife So elemental her catchword. Jacqueline Wood's Scouser Cherie is close on libellous, but even closer on hilarious, her big speech contributing little to the main argument, but deliciously delivered and somehow summing up a whole suspected existence behind the privacy veil.

Whatever the weaker patches, it's a liberating experience, though not recommended for the Right (Rummy's entry in Ku Klux Klan gear's enough to make some bloods boil).

Years ago, theatres staged Private Eye's- political satires. Mrs Wilson's Diary, the Dear Bill'-derived Anyone for Dennis, kept up to date with current events. They tended to run and run (though the Falklands did for Dennis). This could do the same.

President George Dubya: Andrew Harrison
Laura Dubya, self-styled First Lady: Barbara Hastings
Pops Bush, former Preident of the USA: James Pearse
Prime Minister Tony Blear: Alasdair Craig
Cherie Blear: Jacqueline Wood
Vice-President Elect Arnie Schwartzeneggar: Matthew Dominic
Secretary of Defence Donald Rummy Rumsfeld: Rupert Mason
Mervyn, an administrative assistant in the White House: Stephen Daltry
Weapons Inspector Dan Styx: Mark Heenehan

Director: Justin Butcher
Designer: Cordelia Chisholm
Lighting: Robin Snowdon
Sound: Jack Arnold
Choreographer: Warren Hayes
Musical Direction/song arrangements: Stephen Daltry

2003-12-18 13:21:40