Whatever happened to political theatre? Actually, it never went away but just got redefined by some - feminist, lesbian and gay, ''ethnic'' (ghastly word), and the even less happily named ''disabled'' lobby - who, to this day, still fail to be recognised as ''political theatre''.
So there's a kind of appropriateness in Seeing Red, a new season of ''political'' plays staged by Red Room's Lisa Goldman and Emma Schad. Ambitiously commissioning 16 writers (don't ask how they're paying for it - love and the odd pint), the season marks the 30th anniversary of the student revolts in 1968 and Blair's first year in Downing Street.
With 11 plays down and another five to go, the style definitely tends to satirical rather than, thankfully, polemical. Inevitably the standard varies - Tony Craze's rambling Fragmenting Red didn't quite come off but Peter Barnes's absurdist duologue recalling Ionesco, Beckett et al managed both melancholy and regret.
Many of Blair and Blairism's defining tics get a lightweight drubbing - the arts as ''creative industries'', communitarianism - while Paul Sirett's The Mandelson Files posits a wonderfully absurd vision of the Minister without Portfolio as a Marxist-Leninist ''sleeper''.
Enoch Powell is attacked as a rotten poet and his racism the result of a disappointed homosexual love affair in Tanika Gupta's On the Couch with Enoch.
But it is Judy Upton's Know Your Rights and Kay Adshead's remarkable The (Bogus) People's Poem that stick in the memory - the first a brilliantly understated dialogue between an older white woman (Frances Cuka) and a black single mum (Noma Dumezweni) showing the dehumanising effects of our over-litigious society - the second, again with Dumezweni, a heartfelt prose-poem on British treatment of immigrants.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article