What do we do each day that is truly useful and ultimately what legacy will we leave behind? These were the big questions that challenged Chris Mullin, former MP for Sunderland South, during his political career.
Mullin’s personal response is being retold every night for the next three weeks or so at the Soho Theatre, London by five actors in the stage play A Walk on Part.
Writer Michael Chaplin has adapted Mullin’s celebrated political diaries (A View from the Foothills and Decline and Fall) lifting the lid on the rise and fall of New Labour. The play has completed two successful runs at Live Theatre, Newcastle before it opened in London last night.
Mullin was a frequent lone backbench critic of the government. At least that’s the reason he ascribes for his failure to make the high office during his 23 years as a MP. He held two junior minister positions in environment and international affairs and with the exception of banning power boats on Lake Windermere in Cumbria bemoaned his inability to do anything useful.
The fast-paced drama covers a period of more than a decade in Westminster in two hours and examines issues including Africa, the banking crisis, media ownership, immigration, the MP’s expenses scandal (Mullin was one of the lowest claimers) and the fragile North-East economy.
John Hodgkinson commands the stage as a hugely likeable and hard working Mullin with Sarah Powell, Tracey Gillman, Hywel Morgan and Jim Kitson switching effortlessly between the other 58 characters in the play.
I’m a big fan of documentary storytelling and so highly recommend the play. In fact I enjoyed A Walk on Part so much that I’ve seen it in both Newcastle and London.
