Arms control

Questions are easy, answers less so. That’s the conclusion of Joe Penhall’s new morality play and it won’t come as a surprise to anyone brighter than a hedgehog. A brilliant but unstable missile scientist has invented a gizmo that will give Britain military superiority for a generation. Professor Brainiac then suffers an attack of conscience and announces that he wants personal control of the export licences. (Does that sound likely? On stage it seems so loaded with improbabilities that it’s hard to see the play over the top of the pile.) Prof. B. is worried that his gizmo may fall into the hands of nutcase states like (who else?) the US and Israel. Instead he suggests handing the innovation to the European Union. Hmmm. Imagine the EU trying to fire a new weapon. By the time the two-million-word feasibility study had been translated into 67 languages our enemies would have built the thing from scratch and it’d be on its way to vaporise Strasbourg. Enter Prof. B.’s manageress who tries to charm him into changing his mind. When she fails, a creepy spy slithers in and starts making coded threats. You can probably guess what happens next.

No one is stretched very much by this static and discursive affair. Tom Hollander is perfectly effective (but no more) as the troubled inventor who seems far too smart, too clued-up on international relations, to be capable of imagining that the MoD would let him dictate its proliferation policy. Jason Watkins, as a squeaky-clean MI6 thug, issues his ultimatums with a sprightly chattiness that’s original and quite scary. Best of all is Pippa Haywood, in a clingy- swingy trousersuit, who strides around puffing and swearing as Prof. B.’s exasperated line manager.