It’s past 9pm on Saturday night in Westminster, and Matt Hancock is shouting “we didn’t break the f**king law, OK!” Well, an actor playing Hancock is shouting, as he reads out real messages from the former health secretary when his Covid guidelines-breaking affair with aide Gina Coladangelo was discovered in 2021.
It’s part of a new live show put on by Isabel Oakeshott, the journalist Hancock fell out with when she leaked his pandemic WhatsApps to a newspaper earlier this year.
For most of the show, Oakeshott is interviewed on stage by fellow lockdown sceptic Toby Young at the UnHerd Club near Parliament, in front of around 100 people. She and Young decided to do a live event after he was one of the few people in the media to defend her decision to reveal the messages. Young then suggested getting actors to read out Hancock’s WhatsApps, to add some fun to proceedings. Hancock himself hasn’t been that keen on the idea.
Oakeshott tells Young how she came to write a pandemic book with Hancock, and stands by her actions, saying they were in the public interest. She says she wouldn’t be able to do that now, as most MPs have switched on auto-delete on their WhatsApp conversations. “Maybe that’s just for me”, she jokes.
In between the chat, the actors do their thing, dressed in ill-fitting suits. Highlights include chats with then PM Boris Johnson about exceptions for grouse shooting, and a cringe-inducing monologue where Hancock justifies wearing a wetsuit for a photoshoot in Cornwall. The group will perform again tomorrow, at the Leicester Square Hippodrome, usually the home of strip show Magic Mike. Hopefully, no one books their hen do on the wrong night. If they get the backing, they’d like to do a verbatim play.
Adrian McGlynn, who plays Hancock, is an amateur actor and retired director of a horse-racing company. He was in the same year at Eton with David Cameron, while his partner is former BBC radio star Sarah Kennedy. McGlynn is an anti-lockdown advocate, and says he isn’t doing an impression of Hancock. “I don’t look anything like him,” he says, but does try a few verbal tics (“Lots of ‘ers’ and ‘umms”), and some mannerisms. “He looks around a lot, as if he’s looking for praise or applause... nose up in the air a little bit,” McGlynn says.
“I have nothing but contempt for our former health secretary, so I do it with much glee and no fear,” he says with relish. “I’ve been shaking my head in disbelief at his arrogance and total immunity from self-awareness”. Meanwhile, actor Adam Drew gives a very funny on-the-money impression of Johnson. Drew isn’t here for political reasons, saying just that the chance to play the ex-PM was “irresistible”.
I have nothing but contempt for our former health secretary so I do it with much glee and no fear
It’s been hard to get the show together. First, original venue the Emmanuel Centre pulled out when Hancock’s people complained, warning about profiting from “stolen” material. Then the cast dropped out. Actor turned Right-wing loose cannon Laurence Fox was going to play Hancock but changed his mind over a feud with Young, while another actor chose not to play Johnson, reportedly over fears about reputational damage. With only a few days to go, Iona Stewart-Richardson, who trained at the Philippe Gaulier clown school in Paris, was dropped from the Hancock part.
While the show has funny moments, Oakeshott doesn’t see it as a joke. The main part of the Covid inquiry also starts tomorrow and, surprisingly, Oakeshott hasn’t been asked to share the WhatsApps. She adds: “People died… none of it is a laughing matter. All the same, we want the evening to be entertaining as well as revelatory. Some of the WhatsApp exchanges are funny, not always intentionally. There’s no harm in injecting humour into a very serious subject.”
Although they don’t talk any more, she has some kind words for Hancock, despite his (eventually empty) threats of legal action when the texts were released. “I enjoyed working with him, and I think he’s an extremely intelligent and able person,” she says. “I do think the policy response he led was flawed. But he knows that.”
As to what Hancock makes of the play, a friend says: “Instead of people desperately trying to profit from stolen materials with a tawdry show, it’s for the inquiry to look at everything objectively.” Hancock hoped his time in I’m a Celebrity would redeem him but the WhatsApps remind us of his slip-ups (including, as he calls it, Falling In Love).
One gets the sense that the audience would like more explicit anti-lockdown material, and there is excitement when the hosts hint at more controversial subjects: questioning the need for vaccinating younger people, hitting out at civil service overreach.
During a Q&A in the second half, the audience ask several questions, showing their frustration with politicians, before we’re treated to few more Hancock WhatsApps. And at the end, the crowd gives Oakeshott a cheer and heads for dinner. UnHerd? This group is certainly having its say.
