Play: beneverunerstoost (rehearsed reading)
Theatre: Royal Court
Playwright: Nick Gill
Director: Vicky Featherstone
Review by Natalie Gormally
With the elections over and the country faced with five years of Tory rule, did our political leaders captivate us with persuasive arguments, or did they just bore us with stage-managed events, sterile photo opportunities and familiar soundbites?
A YouGov poll published pre-election, asked almost 2,000 people how interesting or boring they had found the general election campaign. The majority (51 per cent) said that it was boring.
During their campaign trails, politicians’ words failed to ignite and didn’t appear to mean anything. We tuned out. We were uninspired. Instead of real depth, insight and reasoned argument, we had a series of missteps, empty slogans, woefully misinterpreted statistics and risk-averse 120 character Twitter micro-bites, repeated so often they attached themselves to our political unconscious.
Politics has its own language. One which very few of us are a part of, understand and engage with. So on the eve of the General Election it was timely and appropriate to experience Nick Gill’s short new play – beneverunerstoost – which rips up, pokes fun at and exposes the near-nonsense of our political leaders’ rhetoric.
At this 45 minute script-in-hand, one-off, pre-election reading, Gill dismantled, contorted and fused together the campaigning words of our political leaders, much to our amusement and entertainment.
Remember these phrases? “It’s hurting but it isn’t working.” “It is only when working people succeed, that Britain succeeds.” “It’s a recovery for the few from a government of the few.” How can we forget the “long-term economic plan,” the importance of “hard-working families” or the “cost of living crisis”?
Gill channels these and many more political phrases into a hilarious gobbledygook word contest. His razor sharp writing punches through the political wordplay in a search for the truth, amid the slogan-heavy jumble we continue to face.
In the quest for power, politicians are willing to say whatever they can, or whatever they think we want to hear.
This exciting work in progress will be directed by the Royal Court’s artistic director Vicky Featherstone. Add me to the waiting list.