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The Rt Hon Chris Smith on Playing with Fire

The Rt Hon Chris Smith writes about David Edgar's new play, Playing with Fire.

The invitation was innocent enough. David Edgar wanted to sit down over dinner with a group of people familiar with – but not quintessentially part of – New Labour, to brainstorm about some of the political issues that might make the stuff of an interesting political drama. And that is how we came to find ourselves sitting round a table talking furiously about everything from the war in Iraq to investment in public services to the challenge of poverty to the ways in which parties of the left need to address the threat of racism and racist attitudes. It was one of the most enjoyable political discussions I have had in recent years.

It flowed freely, it touched on a range of fascinating and important subjects, it reached no definitive conclusions, but I hope it illuminated David Edgar's thinking as he sat down to write the sort of play the National had invited him to write. In the last three years the National Theatre has, with remarkable results, embarked on a series of sharp-edged pieces of political theatre. It is as if the tenor of the times has led the world of theatre to explore the field of politics with keener and fiercer eyes than for many years; and this impulse has led to a range of compelling plays and productions. Perhaps it is the absence of real, effective opposition in the political and parliamentary sphere that has led theatre to reach for political themes so strenuously. Perhaps it is the sharpened public awareness that comes with an unpopular war and a range of global issues that traditional political systems do not seem to be addressing. Perhaps it is the renewed questioning of the nature of power by the people over whom it is exercised. But whatever the reasons, politics have resurfaced in the theatre in a serious way; and David Edgar's play is going to be the latest in this line.

It began, of course, with the staging of Henry V with Adrian Lester in the title role, and in the immediate and explicit shadow of the war in Iraq. It then found its clearest voice in David Hare's Stuff Happens – taking its title from Donald Rumsfeld's sweeping dismissal of all the horrors of war. The Permanent Way, also by David Hare, succeeded brilliantly in capturing the experience and the anguish of the survivors of the Potters Bar train crash. And even the two Henry IV plays, with their turning-upside-down of the world of kings and princes, seemed to have a sharper political message than before. This has been an outstanding run of productions, some overtly political, some intrinsically so. But all of them blending political themes, tensions, impacts and characters with real and effective impact.

Now David Edgar has provided us with an insight into the world of New Labour and the threats and tensions confronting it that is fascinating, uproariously funny at times, and guaranteed to make you think. The play centres on the experience of a young, ambitious manager – Alex Kaplan – who is sent up to sort out a failing northern local authority, Wyverdale. She forces through reforms, only to be confronted by serious race riots, and realises in the end that she may not have gone about everything in the best possible way. Inside this deceptively simple story-line are all the deepest tensions of modern-day politics: the interaction between New Labour and old, between south and north, between modernisation and tradition, between different racial and faith groups, between far-right parties, populism and democracy; and interwoven between these are the enduring themes of asylum, prostitution, the nature of power and the impulse of revenge.

This is a rich, many-layered play which takes you deep into the heart of political thinking and action, and poses real dilemmas about how to act. It provides no easy prescriptive solution to the tensions it explores; it leaves you with a sense of the obstinacy of reality, its inability to conform to ideal outcomes, and the failure of modern politics to deal effectively with those tensions. This is no simplistic anti-new-Labour rant. Nor does it abandon the cause of traditional politics completely. It shows up the flaws; it explores the challenges and the sticking-points; it sends everything up from time to time; and it makes us think. It's drama, not politics, and it's very well-done drama indeed.

Keats once wrote that he disliked poetry that has a "palpable design upon us", and I think even under that exacting standard he would have been happy with David Edgar's play. Political drama is at its very best when it weaves the political and the personal together so that the seams no longer show. It can be less effective where we suspect it is being political for the sake of being political. David Edgar doesn't fall into that trap; and maybe it is because he brought his own instincts as a dramatist to that rambling discussion round the dinner table, picking the bits of the discourse he needed and discarding the rest. I have been surprised, intrigued, and thrilled by what he has made out of our roller-coaster discussion. We came to the table as politicians and commentators; he came as an artist. The art wins.

Playing with Fire runs in the Olivier Theatre from 12 September – 22 October and is part of the Travelex £10 Season.