Nadia Khomami (New play to tell story of Brexit’s ‘bloody difficult women’, 21 February) quotes the actor Jessica Turner – who plays Theresa May in Tim Walker’s play Bloody Difficult Women – as saying the piece feels “very relevant now”.
It has struck me as astonishing that theatre has had so little to say about the current crisis in our politics, but maybe in its enfeebled state after the pandemic – with so many venues now relying on government subsidies – it’s been cowed into submission.
This has been a betrayal of what theatre ultimately ought to be about. Throughout history, the arts have often been a bulwark against dodgy governments and fascism. I think in this regard of Arthur Miller daring to write The Crucible in 1953 as a savage and brave indictment of McCarthyism, when the US government persecuted people accused of being communists. I applaud, therefore, Riverside Studios in west London for daring to put on this dramatisation of Gina Miller’s court case against May’s government and for bringing the story bang up to date. I can find no other play like it anywhere. I shall go to see it with high hopes that it will restore my faith in theatre – that it has not yet totally given up on talking about what’s happening in our society and daring to challenge the existing awful order.
Muhammed Raza Hussain
London
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