Whipping it Up
by Steve Thompson
The Bush Theatre
****
Steve Thompson's new play, Whipping It Up, a satire on the machinations at Westminster, was, for me at least, something of a guilty pleasure. The audience thoroughly enjoyed the frequently crackling comic dialogue and the skilful interaction of the familiar cast, but there was always a sense that we were being initiated into a "little boys' club", or at least a boys' club atmosphere, that, while not universally triumphant, was one we were encouraged to feel affection for, if not allegiance with.

In Thompson's play, the "New" Tory party under David Cameron have grabbed a miniscule minority at the polls, and thus have to fight for (or against) every bill in order to keep the governmental ship steady. A rebellion is brewing over the current bill on the settling rights of gypsies and the Whips' office must contend with the equally ruthless Shadow Deputy Chief Whip (Helen Schlesinger) and her equally dirty tricks, as well as fielding barbed jibes of competition from each other. To add to the mix, another woman has pitted herself against the boys' club, an undercover journalist who wants to cut a deal that would involve a major exposé of the workings of the whips' office.

The Bush Theatre is such an intimate space that the audience is virtually on stage with the actors, and those in the rows nearest the front at times find themselves face-to-face with the protagonists as they stride around. The office shared by the Deputy Chief Whip (Robert Bathurst) and his pushy, nepotistically installed junior (Lee Ross) is a cross between a solicitor's office and a teenage boy's bedroom – which somehow seems entirely fitting – and this only enhances the impression of a male – albeit at times puerile – domain. The comic gems are in the exchanges between the whips (Bathurst, Ross and an alternately unleashed and decrepit Richard Wilson as The Chief), and the two background storylines seem excessive – the journalist is so effectively and seemingly effortlessly dealt with that the threat seems non-existent, but admittedly this is only obvious at the end of the play, as we are only allowed in on some of the whips' act.

Apart from the comedy, the underlying relationship between the three generations of whips is the most absorbing part of the play. The urbane Bathurst is the central character, managing the smooth running of the office on a day-to-day basis, with the ferociously ambitious wide-boy junior, Ross, greasing palms and sabotaging votes with a passion; Wilson is in a way more detached, but maintains his authority ("Still makes 'em jump" he asides with pleasure while 'phoning an MP's secretary to demand an audience) in a disgruntled kind of way. Wilson, posh but foul-mouthed, is the office's remaining link with a tradition of fierce loyalty to faded ideals, manifested in an indomitable will to defeat the Opposition, regardless of the arena of that defeat; Bathurst is middle-management, calmer, but still enamoured of, and dependent upon, the established system, and he is both wary and critical of the professional climbing of Ross's upstart Tim, who takes the personal abuse heaped upon him with various levels of tolerance.

These relationships give the play an edge that transcends the brilliant comedy, and allow us moments of respite between plot development; such is the quality of the writing that we do not miss anything, but such is the speed of repartee that we cannot be sure (until we have checked the script at home) that we have not. There is a sense that, while empowering the women in the play, it is the old boys' world that had all the japes – as Bathurst's character says to Schlesinger's, "Your damned modernisation committee – you've taken all the fun out!" However, Thompson and director Terry Johnson have given us an insightful and hilarious glimpse of that world where loyalty (misguided or otherwise) and tradition take precedence, before it, perhaps inevitably, dies.

by Tom Scruton