REVIEW: * * * Three stars, The New Real has worthy things to say but feels a touch tardy

The New Real, The Other Place, Stratford, until 2nd November

* * * Three stars

ALL hell broke loose last week when the Herald revealed that Elon Musk not only attended the opening night of the four-and-a-half hour play about political wrangling, The New Real, at The Other Place starring Tilda Swinton and directed by Kenneth Branagh but then let it slip that he has quietly assumed a major shareholding stake in the RSC and will now ensure that future productions will be “unshackled” of all “wokedom” and will respect, “the universal right to diversity of opinion and freedom of speech.”

Subsequent enquiries about whether this means that forthcoming shows will be likely to lean to the right considering Musk’s buddy-buddy relationship with Donald Trump were neither confirmed nor denied by his press agent which naturally caused quite a stir although a few smart cookies reckoned the noncommittal was really just a clever ploy to ensure the theatrical company remains in the headlines and a topic of concerned conversation amongst the chattering classes to titillate ticket sales upwards.

Oh, by the way, just in case you were wondering, most of what you’ve just read is fake news. Some will not read further and will take all the previous as gospel because, let’s face it, we have all grown a little attention-deficient. But for those still hanging in there, I say “most” because The New Real is indeed at The Other Place, is indeed about political wrangling and, although it actually clocks in at only two-and-a-half hours, now and then it feels twice that long. Why all the fake news flummery? Well, that’s kind of what the play’s about, or its antecedents at least.

The New Real is the latest production written by serial RSC incumbent David Edgar, directed by Holly Race Roughan, with a plot that seems hinged around a quote by Ben Rhodes, an aide to President Obama, who said, “We went to teach them democracy, they taught us dictatorship.”

The “we” is America, the “they” is Eastern Europe and what it’s all about is a libertarian candidate in an unnamed country which has wriggled loose from the Soviet bloc and is looking to acquire the trappings of Western free trade has hired a political strategist to teach them how democracy works. They learn how to dissect the population into types, how to canvass and study each sector’s preferences and then how to appeal to their wishes and prejudices to ensure they overthrow the incumbent dictator and win the election.

Given the finest tools of the trade, tutored in the black arts of spin and equipped with the most astutely targeted and interpreted focus groups, the process is successfully put into practice and the candidate – or at least, the candidate who usurps the candidate – wins despite a raft of dirty, nay deadly, tricks strewn in their path.

The thing is, though, by the time the next election comes around, the country isn’t exactly in rude health financially and the libertarian candidate isn’t exactly the paragon of propriety that she made herself out to be. Her new rival – surprisingly the geezer she so ruthlessly usurped – has also hired a strategist – surprisingly, the ex-partner both romantically and businesswise of the libertarian’s strategist (Oi, keep awake at the back!) – and all morals and ethics are tossed out the window. More research and more focus groups reveal that the segment of society that is most likely to back a candidate past the winning post are the traditionalists, the left-behinds, the ones who fear for their livelihoods and their national identity. The process kicks in, and the salt of the earth/racist segment (take your pick) are wooed with dog-whistle messaging so…

Well, you know the rest. The point being, I guess, that exporting the democratic mechanism ironically did nothing but open Pandora’s box and uncover a brand new, publicly-sanctioned fascist dictatorship, the procedure of which was, in turn, greedily adopted by chancers back home in the West.

All of these seismic events are dramatised erratically successfully by a cast of nine players, the plot stretched across a couple of decades with the global import rather lazily emphasised by a video structure playing endless newsreels of past politicians and protesters and suchlike. Personally, my heart sinks when I enter a theatre to encounter the video wall because it suggests to me that the play isn’t confident it can carry the themes dramatically and so is going to cheat.

Anyway, Martina Laird’s Rachel Moss is the work’s most rounded character. She’s the original strategist and she’s given enough of an activist family backstory to make her nervous commitment to the new cause believable. Nonetheless, the bit where she shares vital info with her unperceived rival via mobile phone to keep the drama trotting along is one of those “really?”, “seriously?” moments which undoes a lot of our faith in her character.

Lloyd Owen’s Larry Yeates is her oppo strategist and he’s a bit bark-y and overblown, a sweary mercenary more essential to the plot than truly comprehendible. Likewise far-fetched is Jodie McNee’s Caro Wheeler, the ace Scots researcher who, while portrayed with commendable spirit, is made to test the bounds of improbability by handing over more vital info to that rascally rival because she feels her mum is disrespected for having a tattoo.

To be clear, the cast are uniformly fine but they are really just puppets, often forced into caricature by the polemic of a play whose message overburdens its dramatic plausibility. There’s a bit, for instance, where the country in question embarks on the process to get a song chosen to enter the Eurovision Song Contest, principally so the characters can debate whether: a) it’s ethical to harvest opinions from the voters to use in an election campaign and b) if partaking in this westernised pageant is a betrayal of the nation’s proud heritage or a progressive move into the wider world. What it actually is, though, is laborious.

The New Real is trying very hard – maybe too hard – to tell us something important about how the mess we’re currently in came about – those who don’t learn from history are destined/doomed to repeat it etc – and I applaud it for that. But in reality, it feels a little too late.

Here’s the thing. That shark was jumped month or so ago. The New Real is already The Old Real. Anyone out there doomscrolling – and that’s most of us, right? – knows this stuff already and prejudices being mined (Badenoch: “Not all cultures are equally valid”) have already been superseded. We used to be told lies – (Johnson’s claim that £350m going to the EU would go to the NHS if we voted for Brexit) – now we’re sold graphic fictions – Trump’s dog-eating Haitian immigrants in Ohio; Trump again recently on allowing the police “one rough hour” with impunity to tackle supposed criminals echoing the plot of the horror movie The Purge. I mean, if she’s to stand any chance, Harris had better get some crazy going, pronto. Because d’you know what? We yum it up. We have no residing faith whatsoever in any of our so-called leaders. They are all charlatans and frauds and shamelessly admit it. But, my-oh-my, we do love to be stimulated, long to be amused, demand to fed bite-sized quips we can share, basking in the glory of being the sharer. Surely, meat and drink to a playwright.

C’mon, get with the programme. Entertain us!