"Frost/Nixon"

This new play by Peter Morgan opened at the Donmar on Monday and I was privileged to see it on the Thursday matinee. It was a privilege because the play was riveting and the two hours without an interval literally flew by.

I had gone to see the play for the most trivial reasons. It was showing at my favourite London theatre and it coincided with a family visit to London, where I was cast adrift for the afternoon. The idea of a docu-drama has never really appealed and yet I have seen some stunning examples of the genre, "Conspiracy" for example, but these have been usually TV or film vehicles. A stage play, concerned with a television event in which the over-rated David Frost (my own opinion) interviewed the fallen President, Richard Nixon, did not offer me the most appetising of theatrical fare.

The set was extremely sparse dominated by a huge bank of TV sets on the back wall. We meet Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and his retinue led by Jack Brennan (an impressive performance by Corey Johnson). We are introduced to characters and events by the narration of Elliott Cowan, who plays Jim Reston, a liberal opponent of the Nixon legacy which severely mauled the American system of democracy. This is a clever touch by playwright, Peter Morgan, as the audience (or at least me, but I don't think I was alone) having lived through the Nixon era feel our sympathies totally on the side of Reston and thoroughly antagonistic towards the ex President.

Frank Langella has a tough job. Nixon is an iconic figure with his jowly features (and a permanant five o'clock shadow?) and sheen of perspiration. Langella doesn't go for impersonation and correctly. He succeeds in making us realise the complex nature of both Nixon himself and the reasons for his downfall. We are also given an insight into life for the dethroned President after Watergate.

Enter David Frost as embodied by Michael Sheen. This is an instantly recognisable portrayal at least to a British audience but the economy with which the characterisation is established is brilliant. The vainglorious Frost, a television superhero, had been affronted by the failure of his talk show to take off in America when it wasn't accepted for syndication. The rankling this caused in Frost made him pursue beyond reason and beyond his means the setting up of a series of interviews with the wily and unrepentant NIxon.

Jack Brennan, Nixon's chief of staff, likens the encounters to an ambitious contender working for months to get into the ring with the champion. Once in the ring, the contender realises he has bitten off more than he can chew, and why the champion is the champion.

This sense of a heavy weight contest is admirably caught by Peter Morgan's script and at the end of the play I found myself cheering - not only the play, the cast, but, dare I say it, democracy.

Sheen and Langella give two stunning performances and I would heartily recommend this piece of thought provoking theatrical fare.