Guest Blog: Tom Glover Talks Political Theatre and WET BREAD

"Not another one!" Brenda from Bristol cried on hearing of the looming General Election, but I must admit I was worried too: worried for the fate of Corbyn. My show Wet Bread had just completed a successful run at the Brighton Fringe and the King's Head had been pencilled in - but what if Corbynism had been defeated? What if the idealism and the campaigning was proved ineffective by the reality of the election? Would the show just appear so last year?

I suddenly experienced the fear that my work, which was 'of the moment' only months ago, would suddenly appear hackneyed - from zeitgeist to shite-geist in one night. It seemed ironic that a show born in the aftermath of the last election could be extinguished by the premature arrival of the next one.

Vision goes wobbly to take us back to May 2015...

The election was over, Cameron had won against all expectations and Labour had swung into the hands of the hard left. The excitement around Corbyn flooded the country and my Facebook page became inundated by elegiac pieces about him, peppered with vitriolic articles about the evil Tories. As the articles became increasingly questionable, the portrayal of Conservative voters as uncaring fascists was accepted as inevitable reality - and so an idea began to ferment.

As a lefty-leaning liberal myself, I realised that too often political theatre falls into the trap of championing no end of liberal causes and happily challenges right-of-centre views, but rarely turns the critical eye onto itself. So, ignoring all my socially liberal capitalist-skeptic views, I was determined to pen a piece that made my audience - and myself - face the uncomfortable truth: that maybe the left isn't always right.

The challenge was to write a political play about my friends and colleagues - to satirise the well-meaning, earnest and worthy without making the play into something preachy and dull. My central character Adele had to be an extreme, an amalgam of every cause of the left, but I had to find the comedy in her. I did this by making her devoid of a sense of humour and the more serious she became, the funnier she became. Funny that!

It's easy to satirise the views of those you fundamentally disagree with: you have well-practised arguments and facts to rely on. Starting to challenge yourself is altogether different - and having the gall to acknowledge that perhaps some stereotypes have a basis in reality, sometimes, is painful.

I was uncertain about how the play would be received in Brighton - there's few places in the country more likely to have an audience packed with vegan pacifists in tie-dye. Would people be affronted that I dared to challenge some of their dearly held beliefs? Was satire really just targeted at the right? Would the play just be written off as the product of a lunatic facist?

It was fine. It was more than fine in fact - audiences laughed, they were challenged and perhaps affronted at times, but they stuck with it. Despite Adele's irritating 'save the world' philosophy, even the staunchest UKIP supporter couldn't fail to like her by the end, which was a relief - even though she was a nutter, she was a nutter people could understand. It felt like it was really saying something about the left post-2015 election landscape. Sorted.

Wobbly vision to indicate returning to present day...

As it turned out the 2017 election result was fantastic for the show, if not the country. In fact the problem was that the aftermath of 2017 maybe proved that some of my satirical ideas in the play weren't silly enough. In the play Adele claims a personal election loss as a great victory, proud of her 3% vote share - but sure enough now Labour are parading around like the undoubted winners whilst the Tories are the tail-between-their-legs losers.

In the play after Labour lose the 2015 election Adele immediately protests, claiming the result is a 'mockery of democracy' and determined to bring down the Government - only last week the left wing held a massive march to get rid of the newly formed, barely out-of-the-box Government.

I guess the magic of art is that it is coloured by the context and becomes something different as the times change. I wasn't expecting the context to change so radically, but it still works thankfully! Reading over the script before rehearsals I'm left wondering if I am a satirical writer at all, or in fact a visionary soothsayer...

Wet Bread at King's Head Theatre 10, 11 and 13 July

To post a comment, you must register and login.