Paratroopers, Lion & Unicorn Theatre, stage review: ‘Wry humour and sharp political commentary’
Daniel Patten and Jack Medlin in Paratroopers. Photograph: courtesy Callan Ridgewell
It’s election time in Cackby, a fictitious post-industrial town in northern England reeling from the death of beloved local MP, Frankie Fletcher.
Enter Mackensie Steele (played by Jack Medlin) and Connor Banks (Daniel Patten), two Oxford-educated party operatives vying for the Labour candidacy in the now-vacant seat.
Mr Fletcher’s ghost casts a long shadow over their campaigns, as the two candidates try in vain to emulate his unshakeable integrity and steely determination, before quickly resorting to a “very cheeky” plot to rig the selection process.
Paratroopers– a triumphant original satire from Patten and Solomon Alberman – playfully interweaves this tale of corruption with wry humour and sharp political commentary in one short hour.
This play is as salient as it is incisive; the script draws loose inspiration from an instance of electoral fraud in the Croydon East constituency last year.
The play boldly enters absurdist terrain typically uncharted by other Iannuccian political comedies.
Allusions to one character’s haunting hallucinatory episodes and a brief medieval interlude towards the end of the play contribute to a febrile, delirious atmosphere, and underscore the two candidates’ delusional sense of self-importance.
At its core, Paratroopers traces the gradual deterioration of its protagonists’ friendship, a tragic arc propelled by two delicate yet assured performances.
Clips of real-life gaffes ‘anchor the show’s forays into the absurd’. Photograph: courtesy Callan Ridgewell
Steele’s character follows a dizzying downward trajectory. Medlin is utterly convincing in each of his character’s incarnations, ultimately drawing an uncomfortable sense of sympathy for a character of such demonstrably weak moral fibre.
Banks, meanwhile, stutters his way through the campaign with vapid, centrist platitudes and contrived geopolitical analogies. But his bumbling exterior belies an alarming ambivalence towards corruption and a profoundly dim view of the electorate.
Patten deftly balances these two competing strands of Banks’ personality, splicing his more sinister moments with grovelling appeals to party members and gawky attempts at pirouettes. This adds crucial depth to Banks, an anodyne careerist who could have easily fallen victim to a more insipid, humourless performance.
Director Callan Ridgewell triumphs in navigating the audience through the two protagonists’ precipitous descent into corruption and paranoia.
The play’s abrupt, frequent and often disorienting jolts between past, present, reality and hallucination are smoothed out by clips of viral political gaffes broadcast through loudspeaker (think Kamala Harris’ infamous “coconut tree” speech).
These nods to internet culture offer fleeting moments of respite amid the frenzied forward momentum, and anchor the show’s incremental foray into the absurd firmly within a real-world political context.
Paratroopers‘ break-neck speed mirrors the urgency of its message.
In an era where far-right populists threaten to undermine democracy with unabashed disinformation campaigns and incendiary racist pronouncements, this play alerts us to the quieter menace posed by unprincipled political moderates – vacuous, bereft of moral integrity and chillingly eager to corrupt the democratic process in pursuit of personal reward.
Paratroopers ran from 22-23 March at The Lion & Unicorn Theatre, 42-44 Gaisford St, London NW5 2ED. It is set to return at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer.