Theatre review: The Absence Of War, Glasgow
The Absence Of War
Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow
****
In terms so precise and prescient that it’s hard to believe this text is completely unaltered since 1993, the play shows a fictional 1990s Labour leader, a charismatic Yorkshireman called George Jones, failing to win a vital general election because of what seem increasingly like inescapable contradictions between basic Labour principles and the nature of the British state – including, as the title suggests, its obsession with past moments of national glory and military triumph.
The play tells this story, though, through something like a political family drama, as the tides of long-term history and short-term political panic sweep through George Jones’s kitchen cabinet, replete with the usual complement of spin-doctors, minders and disloyal colleagues.
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Hide AdHerrin’s production – with a fine big-stage design by Mike Britton that anchors the story firmly in the age of Ceefax and pagers – features a range of fluent and completely persuasive performances from a fine cast of 12, led by Reece Dinsdale as the failing leader. And at the end, as a new generation of leaders gathers at the Cenotaph, a heretical thought occurs; that only when our leaders remember past wars with less self-congratulation will the people of these islands finally have a chance to move towards a new politics of progress.
• Run ends today