The Inquiry: more satirical vitriol needed to spice up the earnest head-shaking
The first draft of most public inquiries would surely be worth preserving in aspic, before the dilution process begins and the years drift by. “Maxwellisation,” it’s called, whereby those criticised are given their chance to respond – an infamously slow process, successfully dodged by Lord Leveson in the interest of speed, but not by Sir John Chilcot, during the seven years his Iraq investigation rolled on.
Bigger questions are raised in The Inquiry, a first play by Guardian investigative reporter Harry Davies, about transparency and impartiality. How far can we trust such judiciary probes, especially when they’re set up by the very governments they’re putting under the microscope? There’s no way of answering that question uncynically, but the play could have done with a dash more satirical vitriol to go along with its earnest head-shaking.
We begin with a shady MP, Arthur Gill (John Heffernan), being sworn in as Lord Chancellor, despite the fact that questions remain over his involvement with a water pollution scandal. The official inquiry, headed by a veteran judge named Deborah Wingate (Deborah Findlay), has not completed its findings, and the whole thing is making Gill twitchy – particularly with a leadership race looming, when he’s one of two top candidates.
Davies brings the intrigue to a midway simmer that tantalises, and Joanna Bowman’s production draws us in after a slightly stolid start. Heffernan plays his character as an overgrown school prefect with his own interests uppermost: the kind of politician who can usually slink out of trouble, even as a thrusting journo (high-energy Shazia Nicholls) looks to be digging up more. Findlay bounces nimbly off Nicholas Rowe as her right-hand, and gives us just a trace of Thatcherish imperiousness: “I will not be paused!”, she briskly (though perhaps deludedly) barks.
The juiciest part goes to Malcolm Sinclair, as an old mentor of Gill’s at the bar, who just happens to claim the water company as a major client. He revels in his scenes, owning the stage as a supremely crafty operator, an inveterate horse-trader who could have stepped right out of Yes Minister.
Everyone’s career hangs in the balance in the second half, but the plotting and dialogue, turning introspective, forfeit their bite. Davies draws the threads of his story together diligently enough, but it’s more like a piece of solid TV writing than revelatory theatre – I was often reminded of Paul Abbott’s 2003 BBC drama State of Play.
When it comes time for Gill and Wingate to square off – which they do for one long scene only – it plays out predictably, for all the secrets aired: a tit-for-tat exercise in rattling the skeletons in each other’s closets, and agreeing to seal the doors shut.
The two figures who ought to be most clean of entwined interests are connected in ways neither of them has ever divulged, or even understood. Bad news for transparency – just as it would be if Leveson and James Murdoch turned out to be golf buddies on the down-low. This skims along just fine with its smoothly knowing air, but you’d rather it was dynamite.
Until Nov 11; cft.org.uk