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 A ruthless, scatological and no-holds barred look at the
British phone-hacking scandal and at media ethics in general,
the play moved last month to London's main theater district
after a successful run at the National Theatre.
It lost actress Billie Piper as the main character Paige
Britain, a hard-as-nails tabloid editor who will get into bed
with the police or the prime minister if it will net her a
story.
But Lucy Punch is perhaps even more shark-like in her stiletto
heels and slit-up-the-side tube skirt as she delivers the punch
line on the raison d'etre of the tabloids: "That’s what we do –
we destroy other people's lives on your behalf."
It has audiences roaring with laughter at the Theatre Royal
Haymarket, but if the person beside you doesn't seem to be
getting all the gags, it may be because the hacking scandal was
not as big news in the United States as it was in Britain.
"I don't care for it - it's so over the top and in your face
with so many in-jokes that I don't get," said Cheryl Downey from
Los Angeles, attending a recent performance, and she was not the
only American there to be a bit nonplussed.
The play by Richard Bean, who had a West End and Broadway hit
with his "One Man, Two Guvnors", opened in July just after the
verdict in Britain's long-running phone-hacking scandal.
The jury in the trial that transfixed the nation found Prime
Minister David Cameron's former spokesman Andy Coulson guilty of
conspiracy to phone hack. Rebekah Brooks, the former editor of
the hugely successful News of the World tabloid that was the
focus of the scandal - and which press baron Rupert Murdoch shut
down to appease critics - was pronounced innocent.
RICH PICKINGS
These and other colorful personalities have provided rich
pickings for Bean and his talented cast. But not everything may
click for those who don't know that a former editor of the
fictional The Free Press tabloid, played with swashbuckling
panache by Robert Glenister, follows a career trajectory
uncannily similar to Coulson's.
And it may not be obvious to all that the press baron and Free
Press owner Paschal O'Leary, played with Celtic Tiger swagger by
Dermot Crowley, is a blend of Murdoch and Irish press baron Tony
O'Reilly. And in a mischievous twist, the man behind a tabloid
that purports to defend British values is a former high-level
operative of the Irish Republican Army.
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 Still, as could be expected from former stand-up comic Bean,
there is plenty to enjoy for those who come to the topic cold.
This includes a running gag based on a black and gay London
police commissioner Sully Kassam, played with deadpan dumbness
by Aaron Neill, whose officers seem to have a penchant for
killing unarmed black men.
Kassam, whose press conferences are turned into YouTube rap
satires shown on a massive on-stage screen, promises at one of his
news briefings that his force will soon even up the score.
The play moves at a rapid pace but if you miss one gag three more
come along. Many are headlines flashed on screens, often taking digs
at Britain's obsession with immigrants such as: "Immigrants Can't
Spell" and "Immigrant Dole Cheat's Cat Ate Salmon".
The play's second half turns darker as Bean tackles the ethical
issues arising from journalists' use of voice messages that private
investigators obtained by hacking into mobile phones.
When the stories concerned celebrities, footballers and royals,
readers happily went along for the ride, but when the phone of
missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler, later found murdered, was
discovered to have been hacked, things came crashing down.
In the play, The Free Press, acting on phone-hacking evidence,
falsely fingers a father for the disappearance of his twin girls.
After he is murdered in prison, the girls' actual murderer is found
and The Free Press goes from hero to zero.
"Some of you give a damn about hacking the phone of
publicity-seeking celebrities and royals ... Isn't that what you pay
us for?" the still-swaggering Britain, heading off to host a U.S.
chat show, says in a final challenge to the audience.
"The truth is, you know as well as I do that if our hacking had led
to the cops finding those twins alive I'd be a hero." And in that,
she probably does have the last word.
(Michael Roddy is an arts and entertainment editor for Reuters. The
views expressed are his own.)
(Editing by Aidan Martindale and Gareth Jones)
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