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.