Getting down and dirty with American politicos

The Best Man (Playhouse Theatre) Verdict: Vidal statistics ★★★★✩

GORE VIDAL’S presidentialpolitics play The Best Man feels startlingly current.

It pits two candidates against each other. One is an Ivy League liberal atheist who speaks the bloodless language of the elite.

The other is a yackety-yack, churchgoing populist with a brassy wife and a firm belief that the people of America deserve better from their political class. The two happen to be men, but it might as well be Trump v Mrs Clinton.

Bill Kenwright’s production of this entertaining but occasionally far-fetched yarn is good fun.

The two protagonists are Secretary of State Russell (Martin Shaw) and Senator Cantwell, whose surname points to his grotesque tendencies.

Jeff Fahey gives the evening’s strongest performance as this chest-puffing dynamo of instant opinions and ruthlessness. It helps that Mr Fahey is American. Some of the other actors’ American accents are a bit iffy.

Russell and Cantwell are staying in the same Philadelphia hotel for their party’s convention. Cantwell has some dirt on his rival and is threatening to use it. Should the cerebral Russell follow him into the gutter?

The first-night audience enjoying this watchable depiction of political low jinks included a certain Ed Miliband. Not even Gore Vidal could have imagined two brothers competing against each other for a party nomination. But it could make a heck of a play, surely. A VERSION of this review appeared in earlier editions.