Quite possibly the most secretive production to have ever
been produced by the National Theatre in its fifty year history, which is
Richard Bean's newest offering, ‘Great Britain’ is an incredibly controversial
play that clearly establishes the vulgar industry that is tabloid journalism,
and the effects of the phone hacking scandal. ‘Great Britain’ was first
announced ten days before press night and explains the work had to be kept top secret
as to not offence the personalities and general public that were affected. This
was due to the provocative themes that are radiated through the performance.
The play takes place at the headquarters of tabloid publication ‘The Free Press’
and introduces us to News Editor, Paige Britain, a conniving woman, who stop at
nothing to sell newspapers and to increase how own prospects for promotion. One
such day, when she obtains information by tracking celebrities mobile and phone
home phones to seek out their private and sordid life stories such as
cricketer, Jasper Donald's affair and within this she publicises this to the
nation in a hope to sell a couple of copies. This proves to be fruitful in her
aims and continues to phone hack a vast amount of personalities who are
withholding horrific information that needs to be exposed. Bean’s narrative and
dialogue combines both disgust and humour with incredible style and ease and
the references of actual people in the public eye was exceedingly mesmerising i.e.The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. This play continues Richard Bean’s reign as
the comic playwright of the last four years, with his previous one ‘One Man,
Two Guvnors’ now touring nationwide, and it leads you to question whether the
tabloids are being ethically coherent with the stories that their journalists
are writing. This appears to not be the case in ‘The Free Press’ newspaper.
It's a definite replication of Rupert Murdoch’s deceased paper, ‘The News of
the World’ which explains that your personal life cannot be kept undisclosed.
The performances by the company of ‘Great Britain’ were brilliantly captured in
all elements of the production. Billie Piper is wonderful as the disgraceful
newspaper News Editor, Paige Britain. One found the strategies she would use to
pay people off were well conceived and instigated has vindictiveness to such
panache. Roberts Glenister is superb as the Editor, Wilson Tikkel. The scenes
where he'd called the weekly meetings which were unprofessionally led were
vastly amusing to witness. Aaron Neil is marvellous as Commissioner Sully Kassam,
and provides the majority of the comedy elements, in particular the police
investigation videos that you would see on the news channels. The National's
director, Nicholas Hytner directs and it's exceptional as he's been able to
work with divisive themes and present it in a courteous manner and you're just
found the production to be hilariously engaging. Tim Hatley's design is
brilliant as it undoubtedly states the revolted atmosphere of the publications
world. I thought that ‘Great Britain’ was a fun experience that conveys a
current situation to glorious standard and once it transfers to the West End
you should not miss this thought-provoking performance.
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