Theatre review: The Good Person of Szechwan

The Lyric Hammersmith's programming is currently giving me flashbacks to my drama degree, and particularly playwrights who, if you'd believed my course, are produced way more regularly than they actually are. After Dario Fo and Franca Rame it's the turn of Bertolt Brecht, and his political morality tale The Good Person of Szechwan. Three gods come to Earth on a mission to find a good person: If there isn't at least one left in the world, they won't be able to avert an apocalyptic flood that will wipe out the unworthy mankind. They've landed in a very poor district, where people are too busy trying to keep themselves and their families alive to worry about anyone else, but prostitute Shen Te (Ami Tredrea) has a reputation for generosity, and is chosen as the experiment's subject. The gods give her $1000 to set her up for the future, and she uses it to buy a tobacconist's shop.

Theatre review: The Moment of Truth

A bit of a rarity in the temporary Southwark Playhouse's Large auditorium, as the playwrighting career of Peter Ustinov is dusted off with Rob Laycock's revival of his 1951 play The Moment of Truth. Inspired in part by the collaborators during the Nazi occupation of France, it takes place in an unnamed country whose days of military glory are far behind it, and is now being attacked by a powerful enemy and betrayed by its allies. In the face of his ministers' denial, a brutally pragmatic Prime Minister (Miles Richardson) accepts the inevitable and begins plotting how to spin this to everyone's advantage. When The Victor (Damian Quinn) finally arrives at his office demanding surrender, the Prime Minister instead offers him a deal: He and his Foreign Minister (Mark Carey) will collaborate, keeping some vestiges of power for themselves, while making the Victor's ruling of a hostile population easier. Their little coalition will hide behind a puppet dictator.