James Graham has established himself as one of the countries leading playwrights in a very short space of time. Last year his plays Labour of Love and Ink ran side by side in theatres on St Martin's Lane and his latest play Quiz, about the coughing major on "Who wants to be a millionaire" opens soon in the West End. This House was his first West End hit and is now on tour around the country. All four plays deal with events in recent British history but are presented with great wit and humour and make excellent entertainment.
This House deals with an extraordinary period of British parliamentary history as a minority Labour Party hung onto power for as long as they could to keep the Tories out and saw the unusual situation with all three parties changing their leaders. In doing so he slickly explains parliamentary process such as pairing , divisions, usual channels and the election of a new speaker which are a central part of the drama. It runs for just under three hours and just like the Labour Party at the time feels like it hangs on for too long in the second half. The action takes place mainly in the Government and opposition whips office and around the Houses of Parliament and the MPs are referred to by their constituency names rather than their surnames. Indeed one of the best jokes of the production comes when the new elected MP for a constituency famous for its sewing needles complains "you can't find the haystack in Redditch for all the needles"! The action is backed by a small rock/punk band playing music of the period including the 1971 David Bowie hit Five Years, here repurposed to sum up Labour ambition to stay in government for a full term.
