The Hollow Men Play Review

I was very pleased I managed to get along to The Hollow Men after they did a second season in Wellington.  I thought it was most appropriate to attend with the National Party General Manager, plus the Young Nats President and Auckland Girl.

We had a great time.  Laughed at a lot of the same places as everyone else.  Also a few time only we were laughing because of our knowledge of the people portrayed.  And we started to get stares from people as everyone got the giggles after Stephen Papps said that no one is alive today who took part in the Maori Land Wars, and I whispered that I thought Sir George Chapman might have been.  We almost lost it at that point.

Anyway, what worked, and what didn’t work:

Good

The script generally was very good, especially when it kept true to the actual e-mails.  There are some great lines and they reflect what basically happens in every major political party.  It would be even more amusing if they bugged some of the strategy meetings instead of just having e-mails to rely on.

Stephen Papps physically was a good Don Brash.  He played the role well, even though it was an invented role – not 100% like the real Don.  They tried to portray him as a pretty stupid guy with no sense of humour.  Don has an excellent well developed sense of humour, and is a bloody genius.  Yes he was politically naive in some areas, but they overplayed that – but that’s the nature of the beast and it was still a good performance as he did capture the core issue of the battle between what you would like to do and what you can do.

Arthur Meek does a wonderful Bryan Sinclair.  The confidence and energy are all there.

Michael Keir Morrissey did a reasonably good Peter Keenan as the wise advisor, except he made Peter somewhat gay.  He also didn’t pick up on the considerable humour which Peter displayed.  But overall not bad.

The star for me was Will Harris who played Phil Goff, Richard Long, Michael Bassett , Murray McCully and a couple of others. His Goff impression was just superb.  It was just like listening to him in the actual debating chamber.

The scene where Don and Dick Allen sing the national anthem together was hilarious.  I don’t know if that was invented or is something referred to in e-mails, but it was good.

The overall play direction worked well.  The use of music to move on a scene, and the brisk pace of the cast as they walked off and on the stage reminded a wee bit of some good West Wing scenes.

Not so Good

Sam Snedden didn’t capture Matthew Hooton that well I found – to be fair Matthew is a larger than life character in some ways.  Also it may be partly because the book doesn’t understand the real dynamics around National at that time.  They have all the leaked e-mails, but not a single insider who could fill in the gaps (hence why I doubt an insider leaked them because they didn’t supply any additional info which would show).  The play portrayed Matthew as if he was a staffer there with Don constantly. There were no string of meetings where Matthew and Bryan and Peter were fighting.

Lyndee-Jane Rutherford played Diane Foreman, Sue Wood, and several others.  I hated most of her performance.  Nothing against her as an actress, but portraying Sue Wood as some sort of simpering fluffy idiot is a total mismatch.  She did the same for Diane Foreman. In fact pretty much all the female characters came across as dizzy airheads, which if I were more politically correct would suggest showed a streak of sexism.

The somewhat manic portrayal of Ruth Richardson wasn’t bad though – I think I’ve heard a similiar speech from Ruth myself on occasion 🙂

I’m halfway through the book itself, and will also review that when finished.  As I said the play is a good watch, and for those interested in politics especially I’d recommend you go before final day on the 17th. It’s a good laugh and does portray some of what happens behind the scenes quite well.  It is exaggerated of course for dramatic effect.  It happens to be about National as they are the ones who got all their e-mails stolen.  I’d dare say you would get a similar (but not identical) play from any major party in the western world.  It is about balancing what you personally think is best, with what will appeal to the electorate.  It is about how to make speeches effective and resonate. It is about working out what the policy priorities should be.  That’s all part of the parcel.

So it was a good night out.  To keep with the political theme we dined at the Green Parrot beforehand and then Auckland Girl and I had a couple of drinks at the Malt House – I then headed home after I cleared the call saying I had to be on TV at 7 am – otherwise might have become a very late night!