Fest  
Dan Lerner

15 August 2003

Feminists used to say that the personal is the political. They don't say it much anymore, but it is still true. The War on Terror is very political, and therefore very personal.

Just as a powerful bomb explodes in central London, an equally powerful bomb explodes in the centre of a London family. Aussie playwright Van Badham has turned the war on terror into a kitchen sink drama. That's no bad thing, far from it. The sharp end of the perpetual war in which we find ourselves, the bombs in Basra and killings in Kabul, are remote, televised events, so it is left to playwrights to bring them back to the home front.

In the aftermath of the London bomb which injures her daughter, celebrity academic Maggy Tanner is at the forefront of the leftwing response to the attack. But just as the bomb has ripped through London, Maggy's step-son blasts back into her life after a prolonged absence in America. Between them they tear the family apart, rehashing arguments-past and reliving old splits. But their arguments aren't just personal. Step-son David's personal clashes with Prof Tanner are mirrored by their politics: "I'm with the Democratic fiscally responsible camp, you might remember us, we won the Cold War," he taunts.

No one who has thought about the events of the last few years can fail to understand Van Badham's characters, be they outraged intellectual, direct action campaigner, or committed party member. The beauty of Camarilla (which incidentally means a small coterie of secret advisors) is that it brings together all of these viewpoints in a captivating and challenging way. Would you become a direct action campaigner and if so, how far would you go?

If it were a news program Camarilla would be Newsnight: it is intelligent, beautifully produced, and occasionally Jeremy Paxman ferocious.

Far from the heavy-handedness of self-consciously political art (cf Sartre and mates), Camarilla's light touch packs the punch, without parading itself around the ring. Just as the moment of international need arrives, it would seem that playwrights have grown to meet the challenge. That said, there are a couple of diversions in the script that occasionally blur the focus of the story. These are doubtless poised for the chop.