James Graham

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This House

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Nominated: Best Play Evening Standard Awards and Olivier Awards
 theatre
Starring
  • Phil Daniels
  • Vincent Franklin
  • Philip Glenister
  •  
    National Theatre

    The aftermath of a tight election, the UK in economic peril, it's 1974 and the House of Commons is a battle ground.

    Fist fights, political arguments and close votes, MP's are wheeled through the divisions on their deathbeds.

    In times of strife the whips are king and their work is never done.

    This House opened on 9th October 2012 at the Cottesloe Theatre to critical acclaim and ran until 1st December 2012. This House transferred to the Olivier Theatre in February 2013.

    Media
    This House
    Reviews

    A landslide success *****

     Fiona Mountford
    Evening Standard

    astonishingly assured and galvanisingly well-written Mark Shenton
    The Stage

    diligently researched, ferociously witty, and permeated by a deep sense of the tragic-comic nature of all political systems... astonishingly assured

     Jane Shilling
    The Telegraph

    Graham has found the right level of rollicking theatricality with which to make vivid the often farcical survival tactics as Labour galvanises votes

     Dominic Maxwell
    The Times     Full Review

    James Graham’s superb new drama held me and I suspect everyone else in the audience enthralled throughout... I have little doubt that This House will be a strong contender for the best new play of 2012 Charles Spencer
    The Telegraph

    Graham shapes a brilliantly exhausting, funny and moving political epic... another hit is born in the Cottesloe. It will last longer than the years it depicts

     Libby Purves
    The Times     Full Review

    Graham approaches the chaos of party politics in a style that is often bitingly funny... displaying a humane and savvy wit that is very much Graham’s own Henry Hitchings
    Evening Standard

    recreates, with startling vividness, the madness of life in the Westminster village during five action-filled years... I had a thoroughly good time Michael Billington
    The Guardian

    **** The script nails the satin and bellicose tones of politicians, and a culture stiff with sexism and class-consciousness

     Maxie Szalwinska
    The Sunday Times     Full Review

    astute, funny and hugely enjoyable new play Sarah Hemming
    Financial Times     Full Review

    This House, with its humour, its tension, its ability to subtly explain the complexities of the situation, is a masterclass in how to write political drama. Jeremy Austin
    The Stage

    ***** a hilarious and occasionally moving insight into a culture that was once crucial to who ran Britain

     Simon Edge
    Daily Express

    Graham has delicately patched together an intricate and frequently compelling account of this curious caesura in twentieth-century politics Catherine Love
    Exeunt

    one of the most purely entertaining productions in London Ben Brantley
    New York Times

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    Lily Williams
    +44 (0)20 7393 4452
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