WHIPPING IT UP. To 23 December.

London.

WHIPPING IT UP
by Steve Thompson.

Bush Theatre To 23 December 2006.
Mon-Sat 8pm.
Runs 1hr 55min One interval.

TICKETS: 020 7610 4224.
www.bushtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 November.

The mother of parliaments governed from a chamber of comic horrors.
“Cunning,” is the final word of Steve Thompson’s parliamentary comedy. And it’s the watchword throughout for the political Whips, professional deceivers in the cause of Party victory.

Thompson sets his play after a 3-strong Tory election win. MP playwright Joe Ashton still has the smallest theatre lead with his A Majority of One (at Oldham Coliseum in the seventies), but MPs’ sensibilities have to be catered to equally here. The various grades of Whips need all their skills at bullying, bribing, coaxing and lying to keep control.

It’s a crazy extension of old school loyalties, a world of interwoven plots, where the battle to get policy through fuels multiple deceptions, its craziness running close to farce. Thompson keeps most of the farcical business offstage, although the Chief Whip’s first sighted as a disgruntled, reluctant Santa in the run-up to the annual goodwill festival from which Whips exclude themselves. Richard Wilson provides a slumping, whisky-oiled frustration, preparing later scenes where his plum public-school tones enunciate gutter obscenities.

In this world, junior Whip Tim’s Estuary mouth and manner keep him an outsider until he displays the great virtue of loyalty. Robert Bathurst’s Deputy Chief Whip has his boss’s silken imperturbability, based on total self-assurance about the necessity of his causeless cause.

Under the old boys, the Whips’ office has reverted to a public-school common-room, as its previous occupant, Helen Schlesinger’s immaculate Blair-babe Chief Whip says with her mix of assured smile and waspish put-down. It’s filled with dark suits and striped-shirts; Alastair’s spare hangs, newly-cleaned in its polythene wrapping, ready for duty. Only Tim brings a different look to the place.

Thompson’s made life easy by his near-future setting (gearing theatre up to have another go at the Tories?). But his fast-moving plot is near-immaculately acted by Terry Johnson’s fine cast. It falters only once, on a medical matter that doesn’t seem to know whether to be convincing or not.

Nicolas Rowe is splendidly perplexed as a Tory new boy. And if Fiona Glascott’s character presents a certain uncertainty in its change of guise, who wouldn’t in this den of self-lionising MP-tamers?

Whipping It Up is sold out to 23 December. Contact the ticket office about possible returns – or wait for the possible transfer.

Alastair: Robert Bathurst.
Maggie: Fiona Glascott.
Tim: Lee Ross.
Guy: Nicholas Rowe.
Delia: Helen Schlesinger.
The Chief: Richard Wilson.

Director: Terry Johnson.
Designer: Tim Shortall.
Lighting: Simon Corder.
Sound: Fergus O’Hare.
Associate director: Tamara Harvey.
Assistant lighting: Renate Pohl.

2006-11-26 10:03:02