Arts theatre,London
George Osborne becomes a sex slave in a deadly piece by David Hare alongside short political plays by Caryl Churchill, Mark Ravenhill, and Alistair Beaton and Stella FeehilyAt a time when Michael Gove suggests Albania would be a suitable model for a post-Brexit Britain,it is difficult for political satire to match reality. But while I theoretically welcome the return of a topical sketch explain to the West End, this one, and directed by Max Stafford-Clark,turns out to be a distinctly patchy affair. Three of the pieces by Mark Ravenhill, Caryl Churchill and Stella Feehily – possess been seen before, and which leaves David Hare and Alistair Beaton to inject a note of urgency into the proceedings.
Hare’s Ayn Rand Takes a Stand is the best item of the evening in that it uses barbed comedy to expose the paradoxes in current Conservative thinking. Ayn Rand was a novelist whose passionate advocacy of laissez-faire capitalism is popular in US rightwing circles and has allegedly inspired our own trade secretary,Sajid Javid. But Hare imagines Rand – magnificently played by Ann Mitchell as a throaty, entrepreneurial Mae West – projected into the present to confront George Osborne (here identified by his middle name of Gideon) and Theresa May.
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Source: theguardian.com