The Observer
National Theatre, London
Does liberal guilt make good drama? Matt Charman’s new play about international politics, The Observer, is set in a fictional West African country which is making a transition to democracy. The story takes place during that most emotional of all acts of change: the first democratic elections. Against this background, Charman focuses on one person, Fiona Russell, an idealistic international observer.
Fiona is a familiar stage figure: the do-gooding Brit abroad. She is attractive: a nice, well-spoken and successful liberal who has no illusions about reality. When she arrives to observe the election, she knows that her role is simply to rubber stamp the victory of the corrupt president, who fully expects to win. After all, he has had dissident students beaten up and has manipulated voter registration to favour his supporters.
However, when he fails to win outright in the first ballot, Fiona sees a chance to intervene on the side of change. After making a legal appeal to the local electoral commission, she leads a campaign to register more rural voters, most of whom oppose the president. Having made this step beyond the strict limits of impartiality, she puts her cynicism aside and argues passionately for change.
Unsurprisingly, the results of Fiona’s intervention are very mixed. The president loses and finally decides to stand down, but power remains with the military and many people are killed in violence following the uneasy transition to democracy. Charman raises the issue, which is clearly still very much alive, about whether the West should intervene in the affairs of other countries.
Here, he argues that every good move also has a bad result. When Fiona appears in front of the electoral commission, she is accused by the locals of attempting to impose her own model of democracy on their country. Then, near the end, her own translator, Daniel, responds to her saying: “Maybe you should feel grateful”, with an excellent reply: “Do you have any idea how ugly that sounds?”
Daniel successfully criticises Fiona’s manipulation of the facts and makes her admit that she has not just been an observer but has acted as an illegal participant, ending with a loud declaration: “We don’t need you to save us.” Although he hated the corrupt president, he hates her intervention even more. It robs him of dignity.
Efficiently directed by Richard Eyre, Charman’s political play is a very effective account and is clearly sceptical and resonant. So why does it feel a tiny bit unexciting? Partly, I think it’s because Charman is a bit too kind to Fiona. Although he does make her suffer from a bad attack of conscience at the end of the play, some part of me longed for her to be arrested by the military and tortured for interfering with the election.
Although the performances, lead by Anna Chancellor as Fiona and Chuk Iwuji as Daniel, with great support from Lloyd Hutchinson as a BBC hack and James Fleet as a British spook, are excellent, liberal guilt makes for a somewhat bloodless drama that stimulates the mind but never catches fire. Nevertheless, as an account of the spread – and difficulties – of democracy, this play has a very widerelevance.
Aleks Sierz
