What is it about political drama? Why does something as factual as the Tricycle's 'The Colour of Justice' create spellbinding political theatre, while the same theatre's 'Collateral Damage' and, I'm afraid, Dusty Hughes' 'Helpless', feel so clunking? It's worked in the past but today nothing feels more old-fashioned or artificial than a group of people sitting round talking from a different point of view. In such a scene here you can feel the energy draining away from the stage.
On the other hand, Hughes (a former Time Out theatre editor) has plenty of intelligent things to say about the world of the 50-year-olds who seized centre stage in 1968 and have resolutely refused to move to the sidelines since. He focuses on a group of ex-Trots, including Ron Cook's likeable Will, an unsuccessful actor reduced to playing the Worried Man in a life assurance ad; his ex-wife Claire who is 'emptying the sea with a mustard spoon' trying to bring clean water to an African country; and Art Malik's smoothie Hugh who was happy to reject politics in favour of '80s materialism and now writes blockbuster novels under a woman's name. Having wandered out of Will's life, Hugh re-enters with a vengeance when he marries his friend's daughter, Frankie.
The 50-year-olds contrast vividly with their children who are not even sufficiently interested in the state of the world to watch the results coming in on the last election night. Rachael Stirling's Frankie chooses charitable causes as though she were flicking through the latest catalogue. Will's much-younger girlfriend is totally consumed by her desire to have a baby. If Hughes is harsher on the younger generation, he mocks his own mercilessly, especially the absurdity of Will's nostalgia for Neil Young, Bod Dylan and The Byrds. The play is often very funny; it's just that Will is the only person onstage who doesn't seem to have been created to represent a point of view.
