I’m Not Running
National Theatre, London

SIR David Hare must be tidying up — sorting the papers on which he’s scribbled various ideas and lines over the past few years and, in an effort to prevent his material going to waste, has decided to amalgamate them into a production for the National.

[[{"type":"media","fid":"7539","view_mode":"inlineright","instance_fields":"override","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Old flames: Pauline Gibson (Sian Brooke) and Jack Gould (Alex Hassell) (Pic: Mark Douet)","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":""}]]His play, directed by Neil Armfield, is about the Labour Party. Except it’s also about the political outsider, as well as the NHS, alcoholism, domestic violence, mental health, immigration and why there’s never been a female Labour prime minister. Female genital mutilation gets a look in too.

Plays, of course, often contain several themes but each of the subjects broached gets such a fleeting mention, apparently just for the purpose of setting up a line Hare’s particularly proud of — “If there were a country in the world where 90 per cent of men were having their dicks cut off, don’t tell me they wouldn’t be sending gunboats,” might be one — that they leave us none the wiser before the plot hastily resumes.

From these disparate threads Hare has managed, unconvincingly, to weave an alternative present in which the Labour Party — newly leaderless — has experienced none of its current radical change and redirection. Instead, the populist energy prevalent to our times is provided by a doctor from Corby Pauline Gibson (Sian Brooke), who has risen to prominence through her campaign to save the local hospital from closure. Topical stuff, at least.

Now representing the town as an independent MP, she finds herself at close quarters with her ex-boyfriend from university Jack Gould (Alex Hassell), who’s also an MP.

His family is “Labour aristocracy,” with a father who’s a prominent left-wing intellectual (ring any bells?) and he views his right to lead the party in almost divine terms.

But Pauline, encouraged by those who see her potential, is considering taking the Labour whip and standing for the leadership.

Naturally, we root for Pauline, not so much for her inherent qualities — she’s pretty two-dimensional, a vessel through which Hare all too briefly explores his myriad themes — but out of a strong dislike towards Jack.

He serves, to give Hare credit, as a reminder of the sort of Labour politician we were subjected to before 2015. A boring careerist, he’s a hypocritical and nakedly ambitious lawyer-cum-apparatchik, eager for a safe seat from which he can climb the slippery pole.

But this doesn’t stop Hare going to great lengths to deliver a few “killer” lines to a particular caucus in the audience: “The Labour Party’s not interested in votes,” Jack says, to a big laugh.

In spite of crossing back and forth between the decades as well as its various themes, I’m Not Running is a production in which nothing really happens and its denouement is predictably unpredictable.

It’s a testament to how much you can apparently get away with in the world of theatre and elsewhere with nothing but a prominent name appending your project.

In defiance of its title, by the end of a play of not inconsiderable length I ran for the nearest exit, fast.

Runs until January 31, with the final performance broadcast by National Theatre Live. Box office: nationaltheatre.org.uk.