Rotten truth

The Empire
Royal Court, until 1 May

Polar Bears
Donmar, until 22 May

The Royal Court’s stuffy little upstairs theatre is hosting a new play about cultural imperialism. D.C. Moore sets his scene in Helmand where a young English corporal finds himself morally compromised by his desire to torture a Taleban prisoner. The twist is that the prisoner is a norf-Lunnin geezer, of Asian extraction, claiming to have been kidnapped by insurgents while ‘holidaying’ in Kandahar. This device neatly brings the war back home and turns the play into an examination of the competing religious factions in Britain. And though the script is never less than absorbing, and often very funny too, it takes a while to hit cruising speed and the plot lacks complexity. Some of the minor characters are bizarrely under-used. (One actor, playing a proud Afghan warrior, prances on to the stage, widdles over the prisoner’s head and exits — his evening’s work finished in 17 seconds.)

The play’s chief asset is the salty tang of reality, the atmosphere of battle, the army jargon, the throttling heat, and the tensions between the grudging Brits and the Afghan toy soldiers they’re being paid to train. Bob Bailey’s shrapnel-raddled set literally throws the dust in your face. As the squaddies’ boots trample the rubble, a stifling white powder permeates the auditorium. I came out with sand in my ears. D.C. Moore proves himself a brilliant and cynical social commentator who doesn’t baulk at the rotten truth but embraces it with a necrophile’s relish and yet in one sense his quest for authenticity hobbles his drama. Towards the end, the Asian Londoner gets the chance to speak up and deliver a philippic against Western society but because the character is a complete dimwit his inarticulate speech disintegrates into a mass of incoherent swearing.