The Angry Brigade at The Oxford Playhouse

A brand new play that only opened at The Theatre Royal, Plymouth (venue for The Pirates of Penzance that we saw all those years ago) in September. The Angry Brigade is by James Graham who came to prominence with his play This House that was a huge success at The National Theatre.

The Angry Brigade was responsible for a number of bombings (only one slight injury) in the 1970's and the play is based on the true story of four of their number who were caught and jailed for their part in this anarchy. The first half called "The Branch" is located at the Scotland Yard headquarters of the group tracking down the Brigade. The second half is in the squat where the four members plot their attacks, or rather just talk and talk about why they are doing it.

In fact the second half seems more coherent and entertaining than the first. The police are purposefully shown as painfully stuck with the rigid workings of their organisation. The awkward staccato action and rapid scene changes make rather uncomfortable viewing. Whereas the second act flows with the interaction and sometimes argumentative dialogue between the characters.

All the parts are played by just four actors. That was fine for the four police officers, but when they interview other characters, we could have done with different people. Again, that doesn't matter in the second act as we only see the four and who soon transform themselves into their new personas. Here they really come into their own and the acting is first class. It was good to see Harry Melling (Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter films) doing well in a grown up role.

The direction by James Grieve (Artistic Director of production company Paines Plough) is OK. You can see how he tries to show how different the two acts are theatrically, but it cannot stop this being a little too contrived.

The play itself has received excellent critical reviews so it was a shame I was only one of a light sprinkling of members of the audience, I guess the theatre was only a quarter full. It deserved better.