A few months ago, when I reviewed the Royal Court's infantile, anti-Israeli play, My Name Is Rachel Corrie, I had the unpleasant sensation that I was losing my marbles. How could I possibly be so out of step with everyone else in the audience? (Tom Gross rounds up the critics here.)
Well, perhaps I'm not quite so mad after all. This morning I sat down to read Dominic Cavendish's assessment, in the Telegraph, of the Royal Court's latest venture into agit-prop, Talking to Terrorists. I almost went to see the play on tour in Oxford recently, then decided it wasn't worth putting my blood pressure at risk. Robin Soans' drama - based on testimony from terrorists, victims and politicians - has received acres of favourable publicity. Press night in Sloane Square was on Monday, but it just so happens that Cavendish didn't go along until Wednesday, and then filed his review after yesterday morning's bomb attacks. Sadly, the piece isn't not on-line yet, but I really recommend that you read it. [UPDATE: It's now on the Telegraph site. Registration required.] All credit to him for being so honest about his change of heart:
Had I caught up with "Talking to Terrorists" on its official London opening night on Monday, you'd be reading unequivocal superlatives - compelling, harrowing, unmissable. When the threat of a terrorist strike seems only a remote possibility, it's easy to admire, easy to recommend these two hours of "verbatim" theatre from the pioneering touring company Out of Joint. They give you a first-hand flavour of what it means to belong to that sub-section of humanity, and, briefly, what it's like to be caught up in the midst of a terrorist atrocity.
The audience on Wednesday night were rapt. How could they not be? Present people in a safe, comfortable environment with the artfully interlaced, carefully edited reflections of, say, a former child soldier from Uganda, the IRA man who planted the Brighton bomb and a Kurdish resistance fighter, and they're getting the inside story without getting their hands dirty. Let them hear from Terry Waite, from Mo Mowlam - and they'll feel they've been given behind the scenes access to history.
However, sitting, shaken, writing this after an actual terrorist attack, not so very far from Liverpool Street, it's suddenly not so easy to brush aside my misgivings about what, all told, "Talking to Terrorists" appears to be saying. The twin conclusions you're led towards by the material - seductively acted with a calm, often wrily casual air by the eight-strong ensemble - are that desperate, dangerous times breed desperate, dangerous people and that talking to them is essential if progress towards peace is to be made.
Brought up sharp by events that have brought London into the age of global terror, I'd suggest that writer Robin Soans and director Max Stafford-Clark skew the experience so that we don't have to face these questions: what if terrorists don't want to talk, what if terrorists don't want to listen? It's telling that the only time we hear an angry, raised voice is when Chris Ryman, loosely impersonating a leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, tells us that we have no right to judge Palestinians after our hand in the Middle East's woes.
Relevant? "Talking to Terrorists" certainly is that. But does it speak to our very real concerns about those whose primary drive is to kill and maim?
Interesting, no? If the bombs hadn't gone off, you would have been reading about a masterpiece. Here's part of Cavendish's interview with Soans back in April, just before the play began its national tour.
He clearly believes that we should condemn a little less and understand a lot more. He even hesitates to use the word "terrorist". "You could call them freedom fighters, it's entirely up to you," he says. "It's all very well for someone who lives in a delightful village in Somerset to say these people are appalling" (Soans admits to growing up in a "rather posh country house in Northamptonshire" before heading off to boarding school, then RADA), "but try living in unbearable conditions. The only recourse you would have is to take violent action."
I can't help wondering where Robin Soans was yesterday morning. There was plenty of real-life material for him to work on.