Review: BEST OF ENEMIES, Young Vic

'Political theatre' can be a slippery phrase, the first word too often overwhelming the second as the polemic trumps the personal. Not so with James Graham's electrifying new play, Best Of Enemies, staged in the crucible of the Young Vic with a verve and a vividness that catapults us back over half a century to a world that looks disturbingly like our own.

America is riven by unrest, the war in Vietnam is slicing generations and families asunder, the counter-culture is sweeping away the cosy years of "Uncle Ike" Eisenhower and violence is on the streets and in the hands of assassins. In the seething summer of 1968, with ABC trailing the other two networks (NBC and CBS), its Head of News, Elmer Lower, goes for broke with the concept of 'unconventional Conventions' pitting the liberal Gore Vidal against the conservative William F. Buckley Jr, in a joust that dissects the day's debates on the floor of the gatherings that pick the parties' candidates for the November presidential election.

The two men are examples of that rarest of beasts in the anglophone world - public intellectuals - Vidal a successful novelist and playwright, Buckley an influential journalist committed to a new, post-consensus, conservatism. Neither are populists, but both crave the popular vote for their sides; neither are they friends, but each holds a grudging respect for the other, recognising that an objectively sharp mind can often produce subjectively poor judgements.

Based on a film documentary and brilliantly integrating contemporary video in Bunny Christie's stunning set design, Charles Edwards and David Harewood capture the elegant barbs flung before the cameras, the two men driving the ratings with hitherto unseen genuine venom allied to a command of language and a willingness to use their psychological insight of their opponent with a ruthless viciousness. Not only do we see the now hackneyed talking heads current affairs debate being invented before our eyes, we also see the seeds of a culture war planted, one that has consumed the USA over the last decade or so and threatens to do the same in the UK. Dusty history this ain't.

So far, so good, but the play really scores when director James Herrin introduces a cavalcade of contemporary figures into his Headlong production, whose cameos flesh out the drama and add even more wit and wisdom to the principals' dialogues. Syrus Lowe recreates James Baldwin's wry style and steely radicalism; Clare Foster looks like Dusty Springfield as Buckley's wise wife, Patricia; Tom Godwin is hilarious as Andy Warhol; and, when the Democratic convention pitches Chicago into anarchy, John Hodgkinson is a ferociously grotesque Mayor Daley.

Vidal was to go on to further success (and write one of the best memoirs of the 20th century) but Buckley's brand of confident, unapologetically divisive conservatism was to prove the political winner. And as for the warnings about television's growing and malign influence on political discourse with the threat that TV stardom alone might be enough to put a wholly unsuitable man in the White House? Well...

Best Of Enemies continues at the Young Vic until 22 January

Photo Wasi Daniju

To post a comment, you must register and login.