Perhaps you wouldn’t think so to look at me (I hope so, anyway) but in my youth I was a huge Terry Pratchett fan. To the un-initiated, this might seem a bit weird. Pratchett’s Discworld books are marketed at the geekier end of the fiction-consuming spectrum. Pratchett fans are typically the kind of people you find wandering in single-sex groups around the Birmingham NEC. They go to conventions, they have sweaty palms, and often their most fulfilling relationships are with people they’ve met over the internet playing War Hammer (can you even play War Hammer online…?).
Now, I don’t count myself amongst these people. The only time I went to the Birmingham NEC was on a school trip to The Clothes Show Live (I’m aware that this is nothing to be proud of…) and I don’t even know how to play Risk, never mind War Hammer. (I can tell you that it’s Rimmer from Red Dwarf’s favourite board game though, so guess I do fit in somewhere…). I am, however, unashamedly into the Discworld. Admittedly, I’ve not read many of the more recent ones, in which poor Pratchett’s Alzheimer’s is definitely getting the better of him, but early Pratchett. Oh yes! Going home to my parent’s house and cracking open a dog eared Discworld book is one of my favourite Christmas traditions. It’s a bit like getting all wrapped up in warm blanket, discovering that the furthest corner has become permanently soaked in whisky, and having a good suck. Yum.
Imagine my delight, then, when my mother called me up and asked if I wanted to see the new Mark Ravenhill adaptation of ‘Nation’, Pratchett’s latest, in the Olivier theatre at the National. I love Pratchett. I love the Olivier theatre. I even quite like Mark Ravenhill. (At least, I got a big thrill out of Shopping and Fucking in 1997. Looking back that might be because I was twelve years old at the time…). I’ve not seen anything he’s done recently though, and, now I’ve seen Nation, I’m not going to see anything he does in the future. Nation, dear readers, is AWFUL. Execrable. Mind numbingly dull. Crushingly heavy handed. Moronically moralistic. BORING. It made me so angry!
Here’s how it goes:
Small girl with amusingly overblown 19th century name: Look! Black man! Your country’s economy may be shot to shit, and half your people are dead because granddaddy used them as slaves, but 5,000 years ago your ancestors discovered astrology!
Young tribal leader: Why don’t I have any trousers on? Why can’t I do basic maths? I hate myself.
Small girl: Look at these ancient astrological devices that I’ve found! Don’t you feel better now that I’ve shown you how similar to my people you once were? Well done! Now do a funny dance in one of those silly masks, and we can all have a laugh and feel better. Hooray!
Tribal warriors: Ooga Wooga!
British people: Jolly what ho!
I jest not. It is borderline offensive in its inanity. And it is BORING. The plot meanders around, going nowhere, pulled along by the most trite and trying of plot conventions. One of the most infuriating things are the pseudo-intellectual ‘insights’ that appear to be the driving force behind the action. In one plotline, in which they seemed to be saying something about the ethics of the Victorian class structure, the butler, whose life has been devoted to serving the heroine, Daphne, turns cannibal, and tries to eat his ex-mistress. The ‘cannibalised’ servant classes turns literally cannibal. But, oh! Which is worse? Wronged mistress, or wronged servant? Who knows. To be honest, who cares!?
Nation is being marketed at the National’s big blockbuster Christmas spectacle. The people in marketing are mentioning it in the same breath as Coram Boy, War Horse, and Northern Lights. Let me tell you, it’s nothing like those plays. I mean, yes, it shares a theatre with them, and like them, the designers had access to the greatest set and prop making facilities that money can buy. Where those plays differ from Nation, however, at the very basic level of plot: they had one. This doesn’t. There are some nice things about Nation. The set is great. The acting is very good and the lead character is FIT. There’s a very effective shipwreck scene, and some cool underwater moments. It’s not enough to make up for the lack of story though. Rather than anything resembling a narrative arc, all we get is a three hour meandering around various ‘issues’. The good things almost make it more painful – it’s such as waste of resources! Why isn’t Nation good?! How can they have got it so wrong? All questions for Mr Ravenhill to address in his next Guardian column I suppose. Although I’ll never know, because from now on I won’t be reading it. Ugh.
For more information and tickets go to www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
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