The New Real, Birmingham playwright David Edgar’s latest play, offers a dynamic journey through decades of political change. It’s set in a fictional, former communist East European country, where two American political strategists are brought in by the aspiring candidates to help sway voters.

Presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company in collaboration with Headlong Theatre, the panoramic play is performed on an innovative traverse stage by nine actors. The audience are seated in two banks, facing each other across the action. It’s an effective way to tell a political story and makes each scene feel energetic - the open-ended stage creates a real sense of urgency. This is certainly not a dry, historical story comprising all talk and no action.

The play begins in 2002, in an American university, where Dr Kenneth Helms (Daon Broni) waxes lyrical about the role “smart young Americans” had to play in the reinvention of Eastern European countries after the fall of communism. After the lecture, two students discover that they hail from the same unnamed country - Oleg (Ziggy Heath) resents the influence of the Americans, while Natalia (Edyta Budnik) loves her new American life. This unassuming interaction sets the scene for the spiralling geo-political dissent in Oleg and Natalia’s homeland.

Soon afterwards, American political strategists Rachel Moss (Martina Laird) and Larry Yeates (Lloyd Owen) are headhunted by Liudmilla Bezborodko (Patrycja Kujawska), who wants to engage their services to promote her political candidate, Petr Lutsevic (Roderick Hill). She needs help to counter the immoral strategies of a Russian ‘political technologist’ named Leonid Zhudov (Sergo Vares) - theatrically nicknamed The Dark Master. Rachel agrees, bringing in pollster Caro Wheeler (Jodie McNee) as her right-hand man...

The performances are very impressive - the cast bring weight to their roles, and Laird and Owen have good chemistry on stage as one-time colleagues going head to head. Around the performers, huge screens descend, playing looped news reels, broadening the scope of the play to the global stage.

The first half is tight, well balanced and thoroughly engaging, setting the scene for future events and managing to provide valuable context for the audience without spoon-feeding them geopolitics. In act two, the plot is less clear and fluid - perhaps because there is so much subject matter to consider. There are well-orchestrated jumps in time throughout the play, and Edgar ambitiously brings the story right up to the present day.

The New Real is a thought-provoking production that seeks to expose a dangerous trend towards the tactics of political manipulation. Surprisingly humorous in spite of its serious subject matter, it has an important story to tell and tells it well.

Four Stars

The New Real was reviewed by Jessica Clixby at the RSC’s The Other Place on Thursday 10 October, where it shows until Saturday 2 November