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The Constituent
I am not your punch bag! I am a Member of Parliament!
An MP with an instinct for compassion.
An ex-serviceman with a life in free fall.
And a parliamentary protection officer who's having none of it.?
This volatile new play by Olivier Award-winner Joe Penhall deconstructs politics, panic alarms and the conflict between public service and personal safety.?
Published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Old Vic starring Anna Maxwell Martin and James Corden in June 2024.
An MP with an instinct for compassion.
An ex-serviceman with a life in free fall.
And a parliamentary protection officer who's having none of it.?
This volatile new play by Olivier Award-winner Joe Penhall deconstructs politics, panic alarms and the conflict between public service and personal safety.?
Published to coincide with the world premiere at London's Old Vic starring Anna Maxwell Martin and James Corden in June 2024.
90 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 9, 2024
2 people want to read
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 6, 2024
3.5, rounded down.
Penhall has been around for thirty years now, and his plays always get attention, but he's never had a really major hit. That didn't change much with this, his latest offering, which premiered in June of this year, and was saddled with a head-scratching blunder in casting. The titular character is a gruff, borderline violent ex-soldier suffering from PTSD from his many years in Afghanistan - so who else would you cast but ... James Corden? To be fair, Corden got points for trying to stretch his range, but it's still a misfire. Reading this, I kept trying (and failing) to imagine him in the role - which should have gone to - I don't know .... Jeremy Strong maybe?
The other major character, of a do-gooder MP, is more realistically fleshed out, but, the play doesn't really ignite much, maybe because the specifics of UK politics just don't resonate over here. And after a few pyrotechnics in the second half, the drab feel-good ending just kind of peters out.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/art...
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatr...
https://www.ft.com/content/756ee0c4-b...
https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/revie...
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...
Penhall has been around for thirty years now, and his plays always get attention, but he's never had a really major hit. That didn't change much with this, his latest offering, which premiered in June of this year, and was saddled with a head-scratching blunder in casting. The titular character is a gruff, borderline violent ex-soldier suffering from PTSD from his many years in Afghanistan - so who else would you cast but ... James Corden? To be fair, Corden got points for trying to stretch his range, but it's still a misfire. Reading this, I kept trying (and failing) to imagine him in the role - which should have gone to - I don't know .... Jeremy Strong maybe?
The other major character, of a do-gooder MP, is more realistically fleshed out, but, the play doesn't really ignite much, maybe because the specifics of UK politics just don't resonate over here. And after a few pyrotechnics in the second half, the drab feel-good ending just kind of peters out.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/art...
https://www.timeout.com/london/theatr...
https://www.ft.com/content/756ee0c4-b...
https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/revie...
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/...
Displaying 1 of 1 review