June 2014

Introduction to the printed edition of Holes

This play was written long before MH370 went missing. Long before we started re-worrying about the global consequences of local military skirmishes. Long before ‘conscious uncoupling’ had entered the lexicon and Coldplay had released Ghost Stories.

Tom Basden’s play There Is A War (National Theatre, 2011) was written before we collectively looked on from the sidelines at the crisis in Syria utterly bewildered, wondering who was right, who was wrong, who was who and how the thing could possibly ever end.

Party (London, Edinburgh, Sydney, 2009) in which a clueless dolt who’d never had to consider responsibility of real power ends up in a position of leadership after an electoral deadlock – was written a long time before ministerial limousines were driving Liberal Democrats around Westminster.

Tom Basden is one of the sharpest observers of politics and society around. This is the thing that makes him appear clairvoyant. And one of the aspects that make directing a Tom Basden play satisfying and unnerving. Today’s jokes frequently become tomorrow’s real-life nightmares.

© Phillip Breen