Someone Who'll Watch Over Me review, Minerva Theatre

Issues around hostage taking and the murder of journalists, contractors, and aid workers in the world's conflict zones has been of global concern in recent times. It was with great interest then, that I set off for Michael Attenborough's revival of Frank McGuinness's Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. Based on the kidnap of John McCarthy and Brian Keenan by Islamic Jihad in the 1980s, it's a three-hander starring an incarcerated Englishman, an Irishman and an American.

National stereotypes as well as the discrepancy in age between Adam the American doctor and Edward the Irish journalist, who are thirty-somethings, and Edward the English academic who is twenty years older, are elegantly exploited to build tension and humour. To maintain sanity, the men enter a fantasy world, reliving national highlights and telling stories. There are brilliant reenactments of sporting triumphs including Virginia Wade's win at Wimbledon, which underscore the sensory and intellectual deprivation they are suffering, but the examples are set in the 1970s and the piece feels dated.

This is a great shame when Someone Who'll Watch Over Me has such currency. Kidnap is a bigger problem than ever. Today, journalists and humanitarian staffs and diplomats and engineers wear trackers, move in armoured vehicles, carry grab-bags, and their movements are regulated by security intelligence. But they are still targeted and taken in the Middle East, still chained and hidden in dark rooms, deprived of light and movement, news and kindness. They still don't know how or if their freedom is being negotiated by those they've left behind. The way hostages are murdered today is more brutal and it's public, but the method is the same - incarceration and possible death.

In conclusion: Stellar performances from David Haig, Adam Rayner, and Rory Keenan ensure your attention, but for me there was throughout the production a sense of profound irritation that the playwright had not been asked, or perhaps chosen not to, update what could and should still be a very important piece of drama.

References
Minerva Theatre  Tickets
Photograph from guardian.co.uk, Tristram Kenton

Minerva Theatre, Oaklands Park, Chichester.  Run ends October 10.