The Stage

Landscape with Weapon

Published Tuesday 10 April 2007 at 10:45 by Aleks Sierz

Do scientists have a moral responsibility for their inventions? In Joe Penhall’s thrilling new play, Ned is a genius who has come up with a weapons system which he claims will eliminate human error and thus civilian casualties. His dentist brother Dan, disagrees: it is a weapon of mass destruction.

But when Ned gives in to his own doubts about signing away his intellectual property rights in the invention, afraid that the Americans will abuse it, he finds himself in open conflict with Ross, a military procurement specialist and Brooks, a member of the security services.

Penhall deftly and humorously articulates the debate on William Dudley’s elegant traverse stage. As the argument goes back and forth, there is a real sense of thrill at the imaginative ideas that ring in the air. The result is a morally complex play that has a real tang of the contemporary world.

In Roger Michell’s superb production, Tom Hollander starts off as a puckish, awkward Ned and then nosedives into passionate intensity, before finding himself washed up as a tormented paranoiac. It is a fine performance, matched by that of an elphin Julian Rhind-Tutt as Dan. The scene in which they grapple amid the debris of a takeaway is both hilarious and moving.

Pippa Haywood as Ross and Jason Watkins as Brooks both have just the right mixture of sinister friendliness and iron-hard determination. At a time when too many new plays are idea-free zones, it is great to be able to witness a heartfelt debate that is as much about brotherly love and family as it is about weapons, inventions and world politics.