Bleak house

Uncle Vanya
Rose Theatre, Kingston

The Death of Margaret Thatcher
Courtyard

And now news from the sacrilege industry which brings us The Death of Margaret Thatcher. Writers don’t want applause any more. They want controversy, infamy, censorship and disgrace. The technique is to fire off pre-emptive abuse in the hope of converting retribution into publicity. It helps if your targets enjoy being shocked but Tom Green’s muddled effort will provoke barely a miaow of indignation. Opening with Lady Thatcher’s death, the play quickly loses momentum and becomes a sad opportunistic peg on which the author suspends his hang-ups: mother-love and a morbid school-boy humour. The best segment involves a sacked miner who marches from Hartlepool to London just to spit on Lady Thatcher’s grave. That idea has edge. Reaching the Midlands, the protester attracts thousands of supporters who are then attacked by Thatcherite rioters. A promising theme, promptly discarded in favour of dull irrelevances, an embalmer’s monologue, an Oedipal therapy session (complete with dream sequence) and a spectacularly nasty romance between two journalists. These disparate ideas fail to converge and the play grinds to a climax with a drunken newsreader dancing half-naked on the baroness’s coffin — a gesture as gratuitous and mercenary as the title. The play’s only true offence is to be tedious and Green must be profoundly dismayed that no one has shouted, ‘Off with his head.’ I suggest he has a stab at Mohammed next time. Islam is far more likely to divide opinion. And him too.