Never so Good

by Howard Brenton

One of our recent themes for discussion has been the lack of substance of modern politicians.  They seem to have done nothing, had no lives outside of politics, and be largely nonentities compared to the political generation we grew up with. This prejudice receive a severe endorsement by watching the new Howard Brenton play, Never So Good about the life of Harold Macmillan. Whatever you may think of their politics, there is not doubt that Macmillan, Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden were all men who had lives, personalities and foibles, but also courage and ideals.

Brenton’s play presents Macmillan’s life in four acts, starting with the First World War, where he sets out his thesis.  Macmillan although injured five times, did not die as virtually his entire generation did. The play suggests that Macmillan never recovered from the guilt of survival, and indeed his young army self accompanies Jeremy Irons' older politician for the rest of the play, a constant alter ego, reminding us all of who and what he might have been. The first act also sets up the doubts about his sexuality. There is some question about exactly why he was removed from Eton, and his fearsome American mother is very determined to prevent his seeing his guru teacher, who is pushing the young man certainly towards Catholicism, and maybe homosexuality. 

This theme is strengthened when we rejoin the story at Munich, and his wife Dorothy declares the reason for her long-standing affair with Bob Boothby was that her husband ‘did not fuck her!’. Did he or didn’t he?  Was he homosexual or just non-sexual?  We don’t know, but the play suggests that these are important questions. Macmillan is weak/strong enough to join forces with his wife’s lover and Churchill in opposition to Chamberlain’s appeasement policy, and he is rewarded with being made the British Representative for the Allies in North Africa.  A first half which has gone at breakneck speed with multiple superb effects ends on the dramatic airplane crash which allowed Macmillan to escape death again. Macmillan finally agrees with his ever-present younger self that now he will stop being content to be number 2, but go for ‘it'.  There is not point cheating death again if you are not going to strive for the highest achievement.

If the second half never quite lives up to the pace and pyrotechnics of the first, it can only be said that Suez has always been a difficult subject to tackle. Difficult here, as Eden cracks under the strain of lying to our closest – and entirely  vital – ally.  I have never understood how the Government thought it could get away with Suez, and this doesn’t help.  But it does show how Macmillan finally became not only ‘it’, but Supermac as well.  The end is predictable and rather sad.  After a sweeping election victory the sixties strikes our hero dead; he does not understand what is going on, his values are at odds with everyone else and he literally cannot attune himself to an age of pleasure and licence.  Nothing in him has prepared him for being satirised to his face by Peter Cook.  A cancer is arranged and the last of the Tory Toffs leaves the stage.

While it was clear that this was early in the run, the lines not as fluent as they will be an occasional pause when there should have been action, the acting is excellent and Jeremy Irons performance immense.  This is a part worthy of him, and we plays it to the full.  As does Ian McNeice as the mischievous Churchill and Anna Chancellor as the confused Dorothy.  I did read a review which said that the play could have been more if Brenton strove to do less.  Very true, but I would always hope the playwright will strive to do more.

If you have the faintest interest in 20^th century history, I would book up now.

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