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Review: I’m Not Running, National Theatre Live

David Hare's latest is flat and disappointing.
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Sian Brooke in I’m Not Running by David Hare. Photo by Mark Douet.

David Hare, giant of British playwrights, has had 17 new plays produced by the National Theatre in London. This new play, I’m Not Running is a political/personal drama about two former lovers, doctor turned independent member Pauline (Sian Brooke), and Jack (Alex Hassell), son of labour aristocracy, who we meet as students. The two are are locked in a power struggle. The story relates their political ambitions to their personal connections and keeps us guessing as to Pauline’s intentions. We witness her facing ‘agonising decisions’ about her future as she moves from trying to save a local hospital to a greater engagement with politics.

The play is highly dependent on dialogue. There isn’t a strong ensemble feel to this production. What the actors do on stage is mannered and forced; I reckon the cast is pretending not to hate every moment. Brooke’s often teary and her vocal delivery made me wonder whether the character was meant to be secretly drunk. Jack’s facial expressions are so contorted you’d think he’s warming up for a gurning competition.

Even Joshua McGuire, a skilled and slippery comic actor, is at a loss in his role as PR fella Sandy: he’s part buffoon, part Fool, part paradoxically Straight Man to Pauline’s dissembling politician. McGuire’s opening press conference scene suggests the play is going to be a satire or at least a comedy. Later he’s forced to be serious while saying that a PR person is not one who puts a spin on things, but rather invests in the ‘most optimistic interpretation’ of a situation. The audience laughs when Jack says ‘the Labour Party isn’t interested in votes.’ That’s how silly this play is. There’s nary a nod to the pressing issues of current UK politics, we don’t hear anyone mention Brexit, for example.

More than being a superficial engagement with its themes and subject, Hare’s play is ugly in its manipulation of an issue, presumably to garner it some Serious Feminist Credentials: Female Genital Mutilation. Yes, really. Hare is so out of touch with his subject matter that nobody suggests that women of these communities are best placed to deal with this themselves. Bringing in a young woman of colour in order to raise this issue is also ugly; the character of Meredith (Amaka Okafor) is tokenistic. Her role is truncated in service of a glaring plot point. The conversations about feminism are like the sorts of conversations people had decades ago; Jack Gould is oafish when it comes to gender issues, but there’s a sense that the play’s sympathies may lie with Jack’s frustration with Pauline. The suggestion that Pauline’s political ambitions are tied to childhood trauma resulting in inability to commit rather than from her intelligence and ambition is annoying.

Direction by Australian Neil Armfield makes things even worse. Apart from the slimy video projections of media presentations, the style of the whole thing harks back to kitchen sink dramas of the 60s and 70s. The scene set in Corby where journalists are grilling the politicians is excruciating, their accents are so exaggerated this moment reads like a Python-esque parody of disgruntled working-class northerners agitating for workers’ rights.

To think that National Theatre’s time and resources have been spent on presenting this instead of work by young women, or older women or somebody who’s got something worthwhile to say, is depressing.

Briefly, I’m Not Running is a shallow conventional play which skims across issues, attempts to be relevant but which comes across as tired and clichéd. I am trying to think of something good to say about it. It’s professional, there you go.

Rating: 2 Stars â˜…★ 

I’m Not Running

A new play by David Hare


Running Time: Approx 2 hrs 40 mins including interval

Production team

Director Neil Armfield

Set Designer Ralph Myers

Costume Designer Sussie Juhlin-Wallén

Lighting Designer Jon Clark

Sound Designer Paul Arditti

Music Alan John

2 October to 31 January 2019

National Theatre Live

Liza Dezfouli
About the Author
Liza Dezfouli reviews live performance, film, books, and occasionally music. She writes about feminism and mandatory amato-heteronormativity on her blog WhenMrWrongfeelsSoRight. She can occasionally be seen in short films and on stage with the unHOWsed collective. She also performs comedy, poetry, and spoken word when she feels like it.