The Vertical Hour

We went to see the new David Hare play "The Vertical Hour" at the Royal Court last week. I have always loved his plays ever since I saw Anthony Hopkins do a near-perfect impression of Rupert Murdoch in Pravda in 1985. Since then we have seen lots of his plays including the fabulous trilogy of religion/law/politics and the recent docuplay on the Iraq War "Stuff Happens". What has always been great about David Hare is how he seamlessly combines the political and the personal, the serious and the humorous (although his jokes are sometimes a little stuttered). " The Vertical Hour" is the most disappointing of his plays I have seen. It is very static, the jokes are few and the arguments are basically handbags at 10 paces. The performances are great especially Indira Varma's but one can't help feeling that David Hare has become rather too detached from the people he writes about. He needs to get out and about a bit more to regain the authenticity of his language. On the other hand maybe it is a price he is happy to pay for what must be a fairly angst-free life.

Toontastic

Much I love Wor Kev I can't see how his appointment as Newcastle manager is a step forward. Their best chance for long-term success was for Big Sam to be given the time to re-build the club from the ground up. It might not have been pretty but it would have meant some silverware.

Rotten Jobs

Democracy is the greatest thing but when you read about the US caucuses it does make you wonder how we managed to get to this lowest common denominator approach to politics. Obama wins one caucus and Hilary decides to get aggressive. This mud-slinging continues until the least dirty candidate battles his or her equally-besmirched opposite number and one of them emerges in the White House. The least unelectable wins through. Then the next day that person has to get up and convince the world that he or she is the right person to lead the free world. What a process - what a job. We saw the same thing in the UK last week when Stephen Carter took the job as Brown's top advisor. Very quickly the papers went to the archives to see what they could dig up. There aren't many people in the UK with both the public and private sector experience and the youth and commitment to do such a job. Not that you would know that from the press coverage. Every time it happens it make it less likely that the really able people choose politics as a career. I know I wouldn't fancy it - even if I had the desire and capability!