In an age when fewer and fewer of us seem to have interest, never mind faith, in the political process, the name Brian Haw is likely to draw blank non-recognition from all but those of us who follow matters political pretty closely.
Haw protested continuously outside the Houses of Parliament for a number of years, against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Covering a traffic island with posters, photographs and comment on our current lords and masters, Haw regularly loud-speakered Honourable Members on their way into and out of the Mother of Parliaments, until a law was passed which effectively prevented his protest continuing.
A lone yachtsperson among protesters, Haw drew interest and support from the media and public and now ‘The State We're In' ‘factionalises' his story for the stage.
Michael Byrne plays Tommy Price - Haw as theatrical character - with a well-judged mixture of cocky charm, aggressive vulnerability and terrified self-doubt, although cockiness and aggression predominate. Byrne gives his audience an indication of what it may be like to spend years marooned on a traffic island with only your self-belief for company.
Clearly as convinced of the rightness of his cause as any Taliban-supporting mullah, courting publicity and attendant human contact, Byrne's character lives the life of the homeless, complicated and dogged by unshifting conviction. His determination echoes that of Arthur Scargill toward the end of the 1984 miner's strike, the shadow of ‘inevitable' defeat never far away.
Julie Higginson as Tommy's wife touches the heart of a woman struggling to stand by a man married to his mission more than to her, but in an overtly political play, it's a pity the devil does not get the best (or at least better) tunes than the ones Diana Walker as an M.P. and Amaka Okafor as a seemingly sympathetic journalist are given.
Although the collusive nature of relationships between the media and politicians are brought out, complexity eludes their exchanges, while issues and events beyond this protest - the 7/7 bombs, alienated Muslim communities, a government divided against itself as it struggles to understand a situation of which few serving Members have any direct experience are not even touched on.
It's always difficult to give full measure to all the arguments surrounding real events and real people, but even Tommy Price's final impassioned monologue on the rapidly and alarmingly increasing powers of the state feels unlikely to lift the politically disaffected from their apparent state of uninterested torpor.
Times: 6-31 August, 12.10pm
copyright Bill Dunlop 2009