The Letter of Last Resort/Good With People @ Traverse

In David Greig's The Letter of Last Resort the new Prime Minister of Britain is at the end of her first day in office. Before she can go home however, she is asked by one of her advisers to write a very important letter. This document is given to the commander of a Trident submarine, which is completely off the radar, including even to Britain herself. The letter, sealed away within two safes in the office of the commander is only to be opened in the event it can be successfully inferred Britain has been destroyed by nuclear war. The letter is relatively simple. It gives instructions as to whether the commander should launch the nuclear warheads his ship possesses in an act of retaliation, or not.

The rest of the play comprises debate and discussion between the Prime Minister and her aid. The whole thing is undertaken in a satirical style, reminiscent of Yes, Prime Minister; a resemblance the show self-consciously refers to, aware of its own trappings. The humour is wry and tightly scripted, although the prime minister overuses the word 'fuck.' Staging and set design are simple and adequate to the task, but nothing more. The exception to this is video screens which towards the play's end show footage of nuclear disaster. This is an astute comedy that does not wander as far into farce as something like Dr Strangelove, but does provide interesting insights into the need for apparently irrational behaviour as the most rational course of action.

Good With People on the other hand is more ambitious theatrically but far less successful in executing its various aims. This is in large part down to some clunky writing, which the performers do their best with, but that too often seems clichéd and predictable. The play tells the story of a young man returning to his hometown after an absence of some years. He is there in order to attend the remarriage of his parents, who had divorced after he left. Staying in a small hotel he encounters, in one of the staff, the mother of a child he had bullied as part of an ongoing battle between the people of the town and the outsider families who arrive as a result of it being chosen as the location of the nation's nuclear defence programme.

The relationship the two characters develop is based on their painful past and connections they would both rather forget. For one night however it seems they are destined to have some sort of epiphanic union. The show attempts some interesting uses of props, stage design and sound, but ultimately feels too loose and unsure of what it is trying to achieve. A constant low piano chord is played in the background and in truth it becomes irritating, suffocating the spaces between the actors' lines. There is a scene in which the male lead Evan strips naked in order to wash or cleanse himself with a bottle of water, part of his identity as the traveller, the one who escaped the town. This felt somewhat lazy; a controversial shortcut to risk-taking and vulnerability. Of course, there is nothing risky nowadays about having a character naked and when it happened, it felt unnecessary.

Collectively these two stories present interesting and contrasting aspects of the nuclear arms race and its effects. However, the limited scope of The Letter of Last Resort and the unfocussed nature of Good With People prevent a greater depth taken together or separately.