Maggie’s end

Set in the summer of 2008, Maggie’s End tells the story of one north-east family after Margaret Thatcher dies, reigniting old passions and dividing the country in two all over again. Their domestic disagreement serves as a microcosm of the national conversation, as middle England descends into a bout of emotionally onanistic mourning not seen since the death of Princess Diana while working-class regions erupt with street parties unmatched since VE day. Chris White reviews

Tyneside-based writers Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood were inspired to make the move from their usual outrageous comedy to political satire after a BBC report of leaked plans to give Thatcher a state funeral led them to speculate on the discontent this might cause in the areas devastated by her in the 1980s.

Such material will inevitably be considered controversial nationally, far less so for a Durham audience often referred to as Geordies, but for whom the correct demonym is ‘Pit Yackers’. The county’s former mining communities know firmly which side their (brown) bread is buttered where Mrs Thatcher is concerned.

Among the millions of workers she ruined is the play’s protagonist Leon (Michael Gunn), an embittered and cynical Orgreave veteran and poll tax martyr now working as an ‘overly political’ politics lecturer. His daughter Rosa (Arabella Arnott) is a New Labour MP for an Islington safe seat, and a government minister following a fourth electoral victory. She’s also having an affair with Home Secretary Neil Callaghan (Jonathan Hansler), whose constant display of contempt for the working classes gives away his true political affiliation even if his true blue tie – the Conservatives’ team colours – doesn’t.

The ambitious politician rarely sees eye-to-eye with her idealistic father, and the gulf between parent and progeny becomes unbridgeable when Rosa gives her full support to plans to give a state funeral to the hated Thatcher. Leon’s militancy is reawakened with a little help from wife Suzy (Jane Holman) and senile Uncle Arthur (Harry Herring) – that the most touching and lucid moment of clarity in the play comes from an old man in the grip of dementia is presumably because the rest of the world has gone mad.

In places, Maggie’s End is laugh-out-loud funny. Callaghan’s sheer venality recalls Rik Mayall at his best, and his closing statement simply is Tony Blair in one of his more demagogic moods. He’s bested in quality of ranting, however, by Leon’s vitriolic and resentful politics lectures – a useful way of delivering a monologue without resorting to having a character talking to himself.

Unfortunately, too often the writers resort to cheap jibes (‘Why won’t Maggie Thatcher be cremated? Because the Lady’s not for burning.’), clichéd snipes at the Daily Mail, and jokes at the expense of Arthur’s illness. Leon’s diatribe about the apathy of young people comes almost in the same breath as complaints about the government’s refusal to listen to a million anti-war marchers. With much of the material retreading old ground, it’s just not especially innovative as a piece of satire.

Leon’s ultimate defeat has something of a tragic inevitability about it. After his dream of a socialist paradise was shattered he gave up fighting, and once he didn’t protest he soon found that he couldn’t protest. In politics there’ll always be a fight to be had – even long after Maggie is dead and buried.