Review: The Absence of War, Bristol Old Vic

The main thing is not to panic: there are 58 days to go before the general election. That’s around eight weeks to make an informed choice as to who we believe will usher in a new era of political and social rejuvenation.

Do we make a cross in the box for the party strongest on the economy, on health, on education, on the EU, on global warfare? Or is there so little between them that, despite ourselves, we will vote against an over-smooth brow or the wrong tie?

But this isn’t 2015, it’s 1993 – and David Hare’s The Absence of War, produced by Headlong, the Rose Theatre, Kingston and Sheffield Theatres.

Labour leader George Jones has been hurled into a hurried election. There are great hopes for George: he’s incorruptible, he has integrity, he’s ‘unspoilt’. Unfortunately, however, George’s new publicity advisor is bamboozling him with statistics, polls and buzzwords in order to construct an electable image and ‘out-Tory the Tories.’

There are standout characters here, notably George’s political advisor Oliver (fine exasperated energy from Cyril Nri) and long-standing party member Vera Klein (Helen Ryan), treated like a deaf old relic and sounding the death knell for socialism.

George himself, meanwhile, moves from Shakespeare-loving Everyman – declaring that the Tories’ master is money, whereas Labour’s is justice – to a tragically flawed hero in his own right, receding further away from himself.

It’s a challenging role and one that, during this run, has been played by Reece Dinsdale. However, due to illness, Dinsdale was replaced at short notice by Trevor Fox, this being only his fifth show.

Although it’s a script-in-hand performance, Fox does such a brilliant job that it adds subtle colour and irony to the evening, particularly when Oliver explains how George is an inarticulate communicator and just ‘needs to learn his lines’.

Fox’s laconic delivery stands him in good stead for some climactic powerhouse monologues and an ultimate acknowledgement of his ideological impotence: “Why can I not speak of what I believe?”

Hare is known as a state-of-the-nation playwright, and his work arguably touches the line of dry rhetoric. But director Jeremy Herrin foregrounds the dialogue’s dynamism, while Lucy Carter’s lighting design silhouettes the actors against Mike Britton’s fluid sliding set – and it all works together to imbue the action with the theatricality of a genuine election campaign.

Amid the in-fighting and enmity between the leading parties, the theme that feels most affecting is the decline of hope, most tragic here because George sees – but isn’t given rein to express – a real need for honesty and change.

We, meanwhile, watch the same script play out: the hand-over from one inauthentic regime to another.

Happy voting.

The Absence of War continues at Bristol Old Vic until Saturday, March 14. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.bristololdvic.org.uk/absenceofwar.html