BURNT CAKES
Theatro Technis

GEORGE Eugeniou brings us his latest political satire, inspired by Aristophanes’ The Acharnians.
And although it was a little hard to swallow, this imaginatively staged tirade against the occupation of Iraq delivers a timely condemnation of the brief history of Blairism.
In the original play, The Acharnians set out to induce the Athenian people to put an end to the Peloponnesian war, which already threatened the destruction of the state, and a year or two later caused its downfall.
It exposed the way leaders fulfil their personal ambition and further their careers even at the cost of thousands of lives.
Bush and Blair provide the modern day parallels in a story punctuated by song and dance.
Demos, played by Dean Tunkara (pictured) – the outstanding talent of the performance – sets out on a personal vendetta against Blair.
His frustration relates the powerlessness felt by MPs during the decision to invade and the disillusionment within the party as the last remnants of old Labour drift away.
The fractured family of the prime minister echoes the divisions within his party. Blair battles with Cherie’s father for the respect of his son Leo whose political aspirations begin to turn.
At first, we see Leo playing war games on his computer with his dad – although he is never allowed to win.
But one night he is visited by a spectre of Ali, a boy who lost his arms and legs to a cluster bomb. Leo ripens into a freedom fighter opposing the war and the capitalist hypocrisy his father panders to.
This ghost scene certainly had shades of Hamlet. And there are a multitude of other allusions to that playwright – Blair is at once: Caesar, Lear, Macbeth. At one point the play breaks into a few minutes of actual Shakespearean dialogue. “Out, damn’d spot. Out, I say!” cries Blair, his hands red with the blood of Dr Kelly.
Blair’s apparent invincibility presumably drove Eugeniou to write the play. It is Macbeth’s belief in his invincibility that eventually proves his downfall.
There were some scenes that struggled for coherency under the pressures of opening night nerves but all in all Burnt Cakes was a success that is certainly worth a look.

0207 387 6617
Until 8 May