The Times  
Robert Dawson Scott

13 August 2003

It is the comedians rather than the tragedians who seem to have most to say this year about weapons of mass destruction and the dangers of international terrorism. Perhaps events have been moving too fast for even the most agile theatre group. But these two plays suggest there is fire in the belly of at least two writers - one American, the other Australian.

In Van Badham's Camarilla (the word has the same root as "cabal") the personal and the political collide with explosive force. Beginning with a terrorist bomb in a London shopping centre, Badham takes on one of the most divisive debates around - just how far should we allow our personal liberties to be infringed in the name of defending ourselves against the terrorist threat? And how do such convictions stand up when it is your own flesh and blood which is either getting harmed by the terrorism or actually provoking it?

In the end Badham overloads this fast-paced, impassioned four-hander with a couple of twists and turns too many and the end collapses into a flurry of melodrama. A more consciously theatrical production might help as well; her language is almost too potent for naturalism. But it is an exhilarating torrent of ideas. Badham has another show on, Bedtime for Bastards, at the same address which clearly has the same bracing effect if reports of nightly walkouts by offended Americans are anything to go by.

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