Villain revised

FROST/NIXON
Donmar Warehouse

THE Frost/Nixon interviews are widely regarded as among the most compelling scenes ever recorded.
The infamous “trial by television”, recorded after Watergate and Nixon’s humiliating resignation, holds the record for the largest audience for a news interview in history.
The format translates perfectly to the stage.
Michael Grandidge’s production pits the story in epic terms – the programme notes cite Odysseus batting against Proteus.
Frost and Nixon are like two boxers going twelve rounds, or televised hours, with the playboy talk-show host landing the knockout blow.
The drama – that swells with Frost’s conquered nerves and climaxes with Nixon’s trampled arrogance – had the audience gripped throughout.
The story starts with Frost’s career in crisis. In desperation, he writes to Nixon asking for an interview.
The disgraced President, keen to resurrect his own career, accepts.
The $600,000 fee opens up a moral debate on chequebook journalism. Readers may remember Michael Sheen (Frost) as Tony Blair in the hit series The Deal chronicling the murky origins of New Labour. There is more than a hint of that toady self-assurance in Sheen’s Frost – something he seemed to play up to at times.
Frank Lagella plays a stately Nixon, who gets a pretty smooth ride. Having set the scene in classical terms, writer Peter Morgan seems keen to pass off Nixon’s crimes as a tragic flaw.
I didn’t feel any of the hatred leveled at Nixon by Frost’s venomous researcher Jim Reston (Elliot Cowan), out to wrong a great right. I left feeling a little confused, as if I wanted to go a round of golf with him, rather than stamp on his grave.
It reminded me of a recent play about the pantomime villain Robert Maxwell – who also benefited from a playwright’s revisionism.
The closing sermon, on television and political theatre, laboured a little.
But that’s a petty gripe – this was first rate gripping drama, with a sharp, witty script, which may have forged a new genre in political theatre.

Until October 7

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