What happened to the Sergeant Pepper generation, those who were twenty in 1968, annus mirabilis as playwright David Edgar describes it, for the student revolutionary left; a year which saw anti-Vietnam war protest in Grosvenor Square, student riots in Paris, the Prague Spring, and during which Martin Luther King’s ‘I’ve been to the mountaintop’, and Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ cut the air? With all that breaking around them, how could it be that 50 years later this same generation would vote for Brexit?  

Fulfilling a personal ambition to write and perform in his own show, David Edgar, perhaps best known his memorable RSC production of The Life and Times of Nicholas Nickleby at the Aldwych Theatre in 1980, and who cut his theatrical teeth laying into the National Front, has been intrigued by the idea of a ‘letter to the future’ conversation with himself – now a 70-year-old man casting a look back to his 20-year-old self. He describes his show Trying It On as being a sometimes painful, but amusing process in which he reacquaints himself with his past, going back to what he wrote, what he did and what he thought at the time.

Drawing on recorded interview clips of other prominent left-leaning intellectual voices of the time, including Martin Jacques, former editor of Marxism Today, economist Paul Mason, lecturer Sue Clegg, political activist Tariq Ali, and sociologist feminist and activist Hilary Wainwright, now co-editor of Red Pepper magazine, Edgar explores a five decades long culture war that can count many human rights victories to its name, for the most part derived from past labour party manifestos.

Sometimes seeking a show of hands from the audience to gauge their attitudes towards the issues of immigration, tax breaks for the rich, freedom of movement and civil rights, he explores and exposes the political split that exists between those with much to lose, and those who never had it.

Edgar shares the stage with his ‘stage manager’ Dani (Danielle Phillips) who sits at the controls of David’s cue reader and lights. After listening to much of David’s nostalgic ramble, the young Dani (20 perhaps?) suddenly shuts the proceedings down, calling out David’s comparisons between Princess Diana and Steve Biko, and slapping down references to ‘yellow people’ – generally exposing his credentials as a contemporary voice. Although obviously a contrived device, Edgar’s choreographed initial inability to counter, the silence in the air, was his way of saying that times have changed, and an old man’s nostalgic views and language can fail to find relevance. It was a brave self put-down.

Directed by Christopher Haydon, Edgar remains animated throughout the hour and twenty minutes. With a backdrop of cardboard boxes on which projections and graphics are projected Edgar recreates his writing lair in Birmingham. His delivery is quick, scattergun. His various devices for keeping us either awake and or engaged were largely successful, but his monologue, although engaging, sometimes skirted self-indulgence. Had he simply been in discussion with some of his interviewees onstage, we might have had more pop than those from his red balloons.   ★★★☆☆        Simon Bishop   4^th September 2019