The Stage

Now or Later

Published Friday 12 September 2008 at 11:40 by Aleks Sierz

John Junior is having a bad day. He is just recovering from a student party, which he attended dressed as Muhammad, when he finds out that someone is posting compromising photographs of him on the internet. But as well as making him look bad in eyes of his fellow liberals, the pictures have wider repercussions. John’s father is the president elect of the USA.

Set on a fictional election night, American writer Christopher Shinn’s new play examines both the differences in values between extreme Muslims and the liberal establishment of the West, and takes a few well-aimed potshots at the political correctness of well-meaning students. Realising that religious sensitivities are now more oppressive than sexual ones, Shinn shows how John Junior’s gayness is less of a problem than his desire to make a point about Islam.

Eddie Redmayne plays John Junior with an believable and appealing mix of self-justifying outrage and youthful bemusement. He gets excellent support from Domhnall Gleeson as Matt, his fellow student, Nancy Crane as his mother, plus Pamela Nomvete and Adam James as the presidential campaign team. The final clash between John Junior and his father, played by the impressive Matthew Marsh, makes for a thrilling piece of theatre.

As directed by Dominic Cooke, artistic director of this venue, Now or Later is clearly an example of his perception that, at the moment - and not for the first time - the energy in new writing is coming from America. Certainly, this is an exciting evening which mixes the personal and the political in a genuinely thought-provoking way.