Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Bizarre and outdated: Word-Play at the Royal Court reviewed            

Plus: a firecracker of a show at Southwark Elephant

A topical play that feels like ancient history: Simon Manyonda, Kosar Ali and Sirine Saba in Word-Play at the Royal Court. Credit: Johan Persson

The Royal Court’s new topical satire, Word-Play, opens with a gaffe-prone Tory prime minister giving a TV interview in which he commends Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. The Downing Street press team suffer a meltdown as they struggle to draft an apology or a retraction. Opposition parties try to profit from the blunder and the PM’s words spread across the globe and earn him praise from various authoritarian governments, led by China.

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