The Constituent @ Old Vic Theatre, London
Joe Penhall’s play is meant to make us think of tragic local UK MP’s who have been attacked, targeted, murdered by their…constituents, those they’re meant to be representing and speaking for. Most prominently we’re meant to cast our thoughts back to the horrific end of Jo Cox in 2015. James Corden gives the performance of a lifetime in the title role, but overall the play can’t quite decide (in preview atleast) whether it’s a comedy, a dark comedy or very serious indeed. The unevenness permeates into the treatment of the themes too.
This is a really good play in terms of structure and cast, but it lacks the charcterisation and nuance of James Graham or Roy Williams. Given that, it does have fantastic staging, great music (this is your moment to sway to Morrissey or wave a fake light in the air for Billy Bragg’s Between The Wars) and stellar three person cast. A backbench MP, her family acquaintance — now her apparent salt of the earth panic alarm installer — and her protective policeman — walk into her surgery.
Just through casual chatting, the backbencher Monica (Anna Maxwell Martin) starts to uncover more than she needs or wants to know about her old family friend Alec (James Corden). The old family friend with grievances, grudges, probably PTSD, thoughts and a lot of anger discovers someone with more power and leverage than he has — and wants her to use it, for the good of him and others like him. What will happen when she refuses? What will he do when he feels not heard or responded to?
Enjoy the real-time ‘Zoom’ meeting freezing and going on mute. Cringe as the police representative Mellor (Zachary Hart) is turned into a caricature, a thin predictable stereotype, a non-person. And in a sense he is, he doesn’t even have a name — just a family name! It’s a shame, if the people vs processes arguments had been ramped up, there could have been real dramatic tension. Instead the MP and the constituent get nuance, and the policeperson turns into Mr Punch. Yet they are trying to protect and use the law to do so against a potential self-identified threat talking about murder and destruction. The police are ridiculed as usual for being out of touch and heavy handed (truncheoned), which is an insult to those police people doing their job, trying to protect and defend people (not the rich and powerful) and who care. It is a shame that the contrast between people and process isn’t used more, instead lurching into the expected and unfair, unbalanced representation. The other two characters are allowed to be fully rounded, to have motivations, and the police being so cartoonish jars against the aims of the play’s stated intentions. Again is this a serious on the nose play, or a political farce along the lines of Accidental Death of an Anarchist?
Nor does it follow through on its original premise as the ending shows. While its story absorbs, compels and has a lot of dramatic tension, the MP at the centre of it all tends to speak in exposition, whilst James Corden’s character runs a tremendous range of emotions from persuasion and rage to grief to depression and tears. The ending doesn’t reflect what some public figures are really experiencing (from politicians to teachers), instead giving us the ending we’d like to see, cos James Corden….He can’t be that bad, can he?
It will be interesting to see how this play develops over time, alongside the looming General Election. It does have a lot of thought-provoking things to say about mental health and the treatment of ex-service personnel in civilian life, as well as fathers in divorce cases, parental rights and how we treat our public representatives as forces rather than people. Are they are Members of Parliament or our designated punch bags?
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