BWW Reviews: TONY'S LAST TAPE, Bridge House Theatre, May 5 2015

An old man - slippers, slightly shabby dressing gown, greying Poll Tax protest T-shirt hanging limply off a crooked torso, signature giant mug of tea in hand - shuffles in and sits down behind a desk laden with tape machines of various vintages and talks to us. Tony Benn (resurrected by Philip Bretherton's uncannily accurate voice and mannerisms and Andy Barret's pin-sharp script) has much to say about his long life and remains as blazingly committed to his political principles even in his last days.

Reviewing the last volume of his diaries, I felt the loss of a friend, a man who had been speaking to me intermittently over the previous two decades through nine hefty books, the warmth ever present (even through the sorest disappointments), the curiosity never flagging, cynicism's shadow kept well away from the light he shone on a life lived in public for well over half a century. But here was my friend, returned to speak to me one last time, courtesy of theatre's magic,the man undiminished once I suspended my disbelief - as one, of course, must.

Though the diaries are not quoted directly, plenty of their themes and tales weave in and out of the monologue. There's the politics: rewound all the way back to Nye and Hugh and Harold and fast-forwarded to Tony and Gordon and Ed. There's the romanticising of the working class: the annual tears at the Durham Miners' Gala and the belief that a democratic socialism as stridently confident as its greatest opponent would have stalled Thatcherism in the early 80s. There's the late blooming as a national treasure, hobnobbing with glamorous film stars like Saffron Burrows, the selfies as Glasto and the adopting by 21st century youth as an authentic character in a world of phonies.

Most of all, there's the love for his family: Michael, the lost WW2 pilot whose example Tony never forgot; children Hilary, Stephen, Melissa and Josh and their children and grandchildren of whom he was so very proud; and the beloved wife, Caroline, whose death 14 years before Tony's hurt so much.

There's plenty more too. Jokes are told and rejected. Reflections on his life-long love of technology from his role in the development of Concorde to his personal invention of a seat attachment for a pull-along suitcase (or seatcase if you will) come and go, as do the venomous asides directed against the enemies of the working class wherever they are found - just to show that he never became cuddly, just old and wise.

You don't need to know the politics to enjoy this show, just as you don't need to count the nods towards Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape to appreciate director Giles Croft's staging. All you need is a belief in the humanity of mankind and a willingness to listen to how one man interpreted it through the medium of the big politics of Westminster and the small politics of his Holland Park Avenue home. After 75 minutes, you come out inspired once more to consider politics as a matter of competing principles not just competing management styles and, perhaps more importantly, to look again at the gift of family life and to enjoy it while you still can

Tony's Last Tape continues at the Bridge House Theatre until 17 May.

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