Review: THE TENANT'S REPUBLIC, Jack Studio Theatre

I suspect one’s reaction to the stratospheric prices in estate agents’ windows is somewhat dependent on where one sits on the spectrum identified by PG Wodehouse in a rare political quote. “The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”

Donovan finds himself staring down the barrel when his landlord raises the rent just at the moment he loses his job. He decides that, since he can’t pay, he won’t pay (there’s a fair bit of Dario Fo in Kwami-Teye Canacoo’s writing). Handily, the part-time DJ and full-time slacker has a lawyer for a sister and she comes up with the ruse (probably not inspired by Rhodesia in 1965) of announcing a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. Seeking recognition from the EU, the four-flat, self-styled Republic of Dondonia gains post-Brexit traction as a means of needling the UK and Donovan becomes a cause célèbre.

It’s not a bad idea for a satire, but probably one better suited to an Edinburgh one hour runtime rather than pushed out to 90 minutes, which proves a little too long for its combination of righteous anger, punchy humour and winning characters to sustain.

The anger is well-founded. The power imbalance between a landlord, faceless and inaccessible shielded by a housing management agent, and a tenant, adrift on the roiling sea of the insecure employment market on the one hand and the caprice of the Buy-To-Let property sharks on the other, is driven home relentlessly. And rightly so. We’ve seen what surrendering utilities and other essential infrastructure to the tender mercies of capitalism has done and it’s toxic. At last, a government is doing something about the railways, the energy and the water - housing, albeit even more slowly, is coming next.

But there’s the worthy dispatches from John Harris in The Guardian for that social impact stuff, on stage we want charm and laughs and that we get from Burstellar Productions’ young cast. There’s a whiff of entitlement in Andrew Atha’s Donovan’s complaints of having to compromise his dream of DJing for a living in order to earn a living, perhaps a more convincing argument at 22 than at 29, but it’s amusing to watch his chutzpah come through and it certainly stirred the 20-somethings in the house.

He’s helped in his campaign by Amy Beckett’s Finn, the solicitor sister won over to his cause and Anna Pritchard-Howarth’s pretty estate agent, Tina, who decides to switch sides when she loses her job. (I wouldn’t refer to any character in any review as “pretty” but it happens a lot, and without comedic purpose, in the play, so I’ve done so here too). 

The cast are rounded out by Aaron Garland as Omar, Dondonia’s one-man cabinet (admitting a very good immigration joke) and Matt Ackermann, multi-rolling as a news reporter, EU official and Prime Minister!

Comedy is hard to write and even harder to stage and this production is very green in its conception and execution. There’s a tighter show inside this, all the better for a brutal edit (it’s not just the word ‘pretty’ that overstays its welcome in the running gags) and I hope it will come through.

For now, it’s rare to see young people telling stories to young people about young people’s lives that are anchored by old school class politics and not culture war issues. That alone is plenty enough to forgive the play’s flaws and wish the cast and creatives well.   

The Tenant's Republic at the Jack Studio Theatre until 18 October

Photo images: Burstellar Productions