Review of Eden’s Empire

Review of Eden’s Empire by James Graham
Finborough Theatre, 8 - 30 September, 2006

Branded as a political thriller, I expected more thrills and less of a history lesson in over 2 1/2 hours of dense theatre. Recipient of the Pearson Playwright’s Scheme, James Graham created Eden’s Empire as homage to the least successful Prime Minister in the history of Britain, Anthony Eden. Beginning at the end of World War II, this play shows him as a superb foreign minister living under Churchill’s shadow for 10 years until Eden finally has a chance and takes the reigns as Prime Minister. Here begins his downfall from successful politician to laudable fool as he pushes Britain into the Suez crisis.

All in all, the production values of Eden’s Empire were superb : fine acting, top directing, beautiful set : but I find issue with the structure of the play itself. While scene by scene the dialogue worked to drive the story and other than the character of Eden’s wife, Clarissa Eden (unfortunately), all the main characters were well developed, I would ask the playwright : what story do you want to tell? Instead of witnessing a hard hitting play, the audience was given over 10 years of British politics played out on stage. This made for a long and slightly dry evening as eventually my brain shut off to the barrage of facts, dates, times and people that wove through this part of time. Granted Graham did use the political undertones of the 50s to parallel the going-ons in number 10 today, they were too far between to be effective and a few times were over played in order to give a bit of a nudge nudge wink wink to the audience.

If the playwright cut to the core of the piece and chose one element of the story i.e. living under Churchill’s shadow or the clash of politics with Eden’s domestic life or even the Suez crisis itself, I think I would’ve got the political thriller I was promised. Though I did walk out knowing more about Eden then I ever thought possible, I think I’d rather leave his epic journey to another BBC mini-series and save myself the price of a ticket.