Diplomacy can be a whisky business!
TO turn Middle East‑ ern peace talks into an entertaining three hours of stage drama is quite a feat, but that is what playwright J.t. rogers has done in his play about the top‑secret Oslo peace talks between Israel and the Pales‑ tine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in 1993.
this American production has been given a terrific British cast for its transfer to the royal national theatre (the show will be moving swiftly on to the West End, with previews starting at the Harold Pinter on October 2).
toby Stephens, entering his pomp, plays maverick norwegian diplomatist terje rod‑Larsen. He and his wife Mona (Lydia Leonard) helped engineer the talks.
Peter Polycarpou is first‑class as the PLO’s finance minister and Philip Arditti is given director’s licence to go over the top as the louche director‑ general of the Israeli foreign ministry.
But the tale is the thing. Detailed to‑ing and fro‑ing between peace negotiators. How can this possibly grip us as it does?
Maybe one reason is that our own country is, at present, plunged into vital negotiations (our Brexit fight for independ‑ ence). But could we ever expect our diplomats to show the sort of passion displayed by the two sides in this story?
As with Sir David Hare’s Iraq War‑based Stuff Happens more than a decade ago, here is the dramatisation of recent history. Most of the characters are real, even if they are not well known.
the future president of Israel, Shimon Peres, makes an appearance, but the narrative is really about how back‑room figures can set up international peace accords.
BArtLEtt Sher’s pro‑ duction — perhaps 20 minutes over‑long, with a self‑indulgent ending — makes limited use of back‑wall projections of news footage. More of the time is spent in the norwegian country house where the talks are dis‑ creetly held.
the two teams are, at times, kept from each other’s throats by the promise of the elderly house‑keeper’s waffles. A PLO communist salutes her culinary art, saying: ‘Comrade Grandal is to food as Comrade Lenin is to land reform.’
We also hear that the notori‑ ously cryptic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat ‘ensures his words make no sense whatsoever’ on purpose, as a diplomatic ploy.
Peace was achieved in 1993 — albeit temporarily — because the negotiators came to know each other personally, drinking Johnnie Walker Black Label together.
theresa May should try that with Jean‑Claude Juncker.
At tHE Hampstead theatre they also have a play about a real‑life figure, cinematogra‑ pher Jack Cardiff, whose mas‑ tery of light helped make clas‑ sics of films such as the red Shoes and the African Queen.
Cardiff started in the pre‑ talkies Hollywood era and was still working in 1985, on the first rambo film.
the play gives us him in old age, suffering dementia. He mis‑ takes his wife (Claire Skinner) for Katharine Hepburn. He thinks his young carer (rebecca night, a good prospect) is Mari‑ lyn Monroe. He still sees life through the prism of his old movie camera. robert Lindsay plays frail Cardiff, and anyone who has had dealings with dementia may find it difficult to watch. the Cardiff family must also have swallowed hard before giving this play their blessing. All credit to them.
the first half of terry John‑ son’s show more than hammers home the point that Cardiff is losing his mind. I could have done with at least 15 minutes less of it.
the second half is more inter‑ esting: we see the younger Car‑ diff mixing with Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall on the set of the African Queen. Mr Johnson, who also directs, gives us a filmic jungle backdrop and some neat spe‑ cial effects — for instance, a wall portrait that moves.
Mr Lindsay recycles moves from his Archie rice in the Entertainer a few years ago, yet a moment when Cardiff recog‑ nises his wife does achieve poignancy. A mildly diverting couple of hours.