Burning questions

A new play at the Bush with a catchy political title. Parliament Square introduces us to Kat, a young Scots mum, who abandons her baby girl and her devoted husband and commutes to London to kill herself. She doesn’t want to die but shrill voices in her head are urging her to turn her body into a human fireball on College Green, opposite parliament. Her political cause is unclear. Her personal hopes are plainly set out: death and posthumous fame. Everything is ready. Kat douses herself in unleaded petrol (it’s not a carbon-neutral protest), and as the flames engulf her flesh she emits a blood-curdler from her solar plexus. ‘The worst scream we’ve ever heard,’ says the stage direction, an aim that the production achieves with more success than one might wish. But her protest is cut short when a passer-by puts her out with a coat. Paramedics arrive. Kat is carted off to hospital. Many scenes of laborious yelling ensue as she recovers. First she’s in bed. Later she takes a few tentative and screech-assisted steps.

Her costume in the burns unit looks a bit fancy dress. Orange wrappings encase her upper torso. More bandages, also orange, grip her ankles tightly together so that she waddles in the upright position like a mermaid attempting a zebra crossing. Her mother shows up and fires ratty questions at her. Why? she wants to know. Kat answers vaguely. ‘I couldn’t just sit around watching the news any more. I had to do something.’ Mum isn’t satisfied. This petrol-fuelled stunt couldn’t possibly justify widowing a husband and leaving a baby girl an orphan. ‘It’s her world too,’ wheedles Kat, with casual self-righteousness. ‘People are suffering.’