Send in the clowns

Counted?
County Hall, until 22 May

The Real Thing
Old Vic, until 5 June

Voting is so irrational as to qualify as an act of religious devotion. The process involves a fabulous confluence of approximations. Candidates offer a pattern of promises. Voters select the pattern that most closely meets their needs. And though there may be only the barest overlap between the needs and the promises, the voters maintain a belief that their choice carries influence even after it’s been diluted in the choices of millions of others. It’s a miracle anyone votes at all. A new verbatim play, Counted?, examines our attitudes towards the process.

Scrupulously researched, superbly acted, and staged in the austere grandeur of County Hall’s debating chamber, this is a terrific slice of entertainment. The material has been recorded by unobtrusive radio mikes and the result is far more authentic than a TV documentary and its fly-on-the-wall approach. Bulky cameras falsify matters by thespianising the experiment and turning the participants into actors who simulate larger-than-life versions of themselves. Radio operates by stealth and this eavesdropped world is crammed with unintended hilarity.

The best clown of the lot is Simon Poland, who gives a brilliant account of the over-earnest politics professor in charge of the investigation. He steps bravely beyond the walls of his faculty to encounter The People of Britain, and his blinkered pomposity is a joy to behold. He assumes that non-academics are as thick as carp. Instead of asking people about their voting habits he says, ‘What do you think is happening here?’ and waggles a photo of a polling booth at them. He tries to descend to the level of a teenage girl by suggesting that treats be offered at polling stations. She looks bemused.