Inside Scoop: The National Theatre's secret satire on the phone hacking scandal

Rehearsed in secret, Richard Bean's new satire about the phone hacking scandal was kept covert until the real life court case concluded. This is the National at its most daring...

While the phone hacking enquiry into News of the World dragged on, this new satirical look at the scandal has been secretly building.  Lo and behold, as the trial reached its headline-grabbing conclusion yesterday, Great Britain was announced on the morning of the 25th. Under Nicholas Hytner's direction The National is proving itself a force to be reckoned with by exploring such current and controversial issues, and converting them into comedy. The play is directed by Hytner himself, who promises that “Nobody, press, politicians, police, comes out of it terribly well.” Such a universally damning representation proves that he plans to end his bold run as Artistic Director of The National with a bang.

The Background...

Richard Bean has been writing and planning Great Britain for over a year— ever since the stories of phone hacking broke. Public outrage mounted after it was revealed that News International, Rupert Murdoch ’s newspaper publishing company, was responsible for hacking into the voicemail of murdered school girl Milly Dowler, the relatives of dead British soldiers and victims of the 7/7 bombings. Bean has transformed the contentious issue into a very broad farce: “all tits and bingo, gay vicars, the typical tabloid fare, funny but grotesque”, as the playwright puts it. In many ways he has been the saving grace of the satire genre, with his comic masterpiece One Man, Two Guvnors now a permanent fixture in the West End. Bean has also already cut his teeth on controversial subjects at The National: his play about immigration, England People Very Nice proved divisive and was dubbed “a pageant about prejudice” by The Observer.

Bean is a great admirer of Joe Orton, whose damning, dark satires inspired the adjective ‘Ortonesque’ when describing similar work. In an interview, Bean decried modern English playwrights as “all so polite. They daren’t say anything about anybody.... what would Joe Orton do if he were alive? He’d go around, find the open wound and pour salt in it .”. With the aftermath of the phone hacking trial still so raw, it seems that Bean has found a very fresh wound for the subject this latest play.

The Plot...

Billie Piper plays Paige Britain, a young news editor at fake firm The Free Press, who will stop at nothing to sell more papers. 

The People...

Doctor Who companion and star of the TV series Secret Diary of a Call Girl, Billie Piper is as gifted on stage as she is on small screen. At once sarcastic and loud and then suddenly deeply vulnerable and child-like, she was the heart and soul of Lucy Prebble’s treatise on love and depression, The Effect, which earned five star reviews when at The National last January.

Scott Karim, RADA graduate, is also part of what is a vast ensemble. He worked with Hytner before in his much lauded production of Othello last year, with Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear. Karim says he has never enjoyed working on something more and that the script is “very, very funny.” 

Booking...

Due to what The National describe as 'the unique nature of the production', otherwise known as subterfuge, this play was only announced five days before opening night. 

Performances from 30th June to 12th July are now on general sale. National Theatre Members, don't fear: the shows from 14th July to 23rd August are reserved for priority booking, and won't be on sale to the public until tomorrow.

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