James Graham’s stirring new play Best of Enemies makes the transfer from the Young Vic to the Noël Coward Theatre
“One side of his mouth has decided to enjoy something without telling the other”
Not a lot new to say in regards to the strapping Best of Enemies that I didn’t cowl in its authentic run on the Young Vic. Nearly a yr down the road, it has transferred to the West End on the Noël Coward Theatre, with Zachary Quinto stepping in for Charles Edwards as Gore Vidal reverse the returning David Harewood as William F. Buckley Jr. And it stays a corking piece of theatre, additional cementing James Graham as one among our most interesting writers.
His reward is to totally immerse his audiences in his topic and lavish us with sufficient context, information and perception to make us really feel like we’ve discovered one thing, in the very best manner, even when it a subject about which you had been scarcely conscious earlier than. In this case, it’s the TV debates within the run-up to the US 1968 Presidential election beneath the highlight, however it’s up to date US politics, tradition wars and superstar that’s beneath the microscope.
Harewood is great as soon as once more because the egotistical rightwing conservative and Quinto is an abrasive revelation as his cruelly waspish if witty liberal counterpart who between them, reinvigorated the very notion of TV political punditry and maybe unwittingly ushered within the potential damage of the political system itself. Jeremy Herrin’s manufacturing stays a visible deal with, significantly in Bunny Christie’s design, and is a pleasingly daring selection for the West End.