The Last Days of Liz Truss ★★

By The Recs EM - Erin Muldoon 2 months ago

With ‘The Last Days of Liz Truss’, satire is attempted in this one-woman show. (Or is it?)

She’s a woman for the British black-pudding lovers, if you recall her 2014 rant about the pork and cheese markets. She’s a woman who stood her ground until she could no longer stand as PM. The lettuce lasted longer than she did, and she walked off stage when confronted with it. What else do you know about Liz Truss? Enough to make a two-hour-long parody of her? The answer is yes, but only if you’re scriptwriter Greg Wilkinson, a former councillor and PPE Oxford graduate. So, who is this play actually for? What is it about? And what message does it send to stage it now?

After having a couple of successful Fringe runs, The Last Days of Liz Truss? returns as a big monologue with a 15-minute interval and an adapted ending. The Other Palace’s downstairs space mimics the play’s Fringe-y upbringing. It houses a nice small stage and bar, with a sit-where-you-like policy. As you walk in, Emma Wilkinson Wright (Liz Truss) sits in her Downing Street office, applying lipstick. A golden-framed photograph of Thatcher above Truss’ desk is a funny touch.

Images by Tristram Kenton

From beginning to end, Wright lectures her audience in a way that feels just as inauthentic as it did in 2022. She starts off framed as this autonomous thinker who wants radical change, who ‘knows exactly when to say “shall” and “shan’t”. By the end, after sitting through several ‘meetings’ and carbon-copy speeches, there comes a massive tonal change. The lights go down; she sits on her desk, raging at a lettuce head that arrives far too late in the programme. Then, she acts the victim (of mainstream media) in order to become the oppressor (Trump’s mate) while she begs for our understanding in infront of a blurry projection of the US flag. At this point, the line between irony and propaganda is just too blurred for any political message to resonate. With this concept, Wilkinson had the opportunity to be daring in his exploration. While it’s clear he has bold intentions, he may have too many for any singular message to resonate.

 

Wright’s performance as Truss is mostly accurate. She has some key gestures down: sipping goofily from her glass, the inability to curtsy, spreading gaunt grins to her audience after saying heinous things – that’s all successfully parodical. But she dips in and out of the Truss voice; maybe this hinders her ability to project properly. The script aims to give Wright some authority, making jokes out of ultra-niche facts of Truss’ backstory, but they only land if your audience has done prior research. She monologues about ambition and success. Wright puts a bow in her hair and transforms into an assured young girl, demanding she be named Elizabeth rather than Mary (Truss’ legal first name) because she’s a proud Elizabethan as opposed to a supporter of Bloody Mary. Okay, great, a relatable joke for those who’ve sat through any basic history lesson, but after hearing the joke five times, it becomes a little worn.

In her defence, Wright’s two-hour one-woman show is a mammoth task. It’s made harder when performing such an unlikeable, real-life person, especially when the script isn’t clear on whether your aim is to create sympathy or comedy. In all fairness, Wright’s energy never wavers. However, because of Wilkinson’s foggy objective, it’s difficult to know how to engage with this material. The writing feels like an attempt at witty satire with an existential twist, but could this be better achieved with more cast members? It’s hard to facilitate a satirical banter between one woman on stage and frequent, indistinguishable, cartoonish voiceovers of Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng and the likes. Steve Nallon’s impressions are mildly funny, but the frequency of the soundbites makes you wonder whether they should have just found a couple more actors. Satire struggles when there’s no low-status voice of reason to punch up at your focal point – amplifying the parody. Where is your Shakespeare’s fool?

Now, this play is clearly written for the politically educated. Most of the script caters to niche political audiences. This mirrors Truss and her cabinet; maybe it’s all intentional. But objectively, the plot goes everywhere and nowhere, circling around the same repetitive lectures on ‘growth’ and ‘elevation’, with frequent attempts to garner sympathy for Truss because… she made mistakes, and… everybody makes them… therefore, she should be forgiven? It’s hard to sympathise and satirise. Listening to Wright spout words like ‘subsidy’ and ‘GDP’, you may as well be a 16-year-old politics student trying to interpret Private Eye for the first time. When she picks up a gold microphone for interludes of corny karaoke, the comedy doesn’t land because of the tonal whiplash. For this play to work, Wilkinson must define his objective and go easy on the jargon.

Of course, this type of show really does appeal to political audiences. Much of its content is humorous in the context of Truss’s Downing Street residency, but this play has now run for longer than she’s been in office. Political comedies will never leave the stage, rightfully so, but their success is down to their relevance. Unfortunately, this play’s term has probably come to an end.

Anybody want some lettuce with this word salad? ★★ 2 stars

The Last Days of Liz Truss? runs at The Other Palace until 15 March. 

Author Profile

The Recs EM - Erin Muldoon
Tags: