The Doctor - Almeida / Duke of York’s / Richmond & Brighton

I thought this was superb! Very thought provoking and moving.

I've seen far too many productions recently that can be best described as "timely" or "relevant". I know theatre can be an important part of responding to the way the world is, especially as it can react much more quickly than film or TV, but with the way the world is right now, I'd really rather have more of a balance between relevant plays and escapist plays, rather than a majority of one and Present Laughter valiantly working hard to represent t'other practically all by itself.

This is also what I have been thinking, so much is a 're imagining for present time'. Sometimes I just want to see a play as written and be transported. 

I felt that The Doctor had just enough really beautiful scenes to save it, but as I said above I did leave the theatre furious so...

Off to see Measure for Measure at RSC this evening, the original #metoo play. So I agree with you, David, too much ‘preaching’ and not enough character or plot doing the work.

I had to return my ticket for tomorrow evening so it may be put on sale this afternoon. Worth checking the website in a while if you're free and keen to see this!

I really enjoyed this, though I suffered from the lack of someone to discuss it with afterwards as I went alone. I do have some questions or niggles, though. I wondered why Icke had not updated the religious conflict, which to me seems rather distant from the contemporary world: wouldn't there have been more of a frisson of danger if the conflict had been between secularism and Islam rather than secularism and Roman Catholicism ? Perhaps that would have been too controversial or dangerous? I can imagine that if the Doctor slagged off Islam in the way she criticised the Roman Catholic church there would have been more tension. Though, I suppose, arts organisations are more afraid of Muslim over-reaction to criticism than Catholic over-reaction?

There was something not quite right about the TV panel scene, I thought, which the Time Out reviewer picked up on. Is the audience meant to think the academics are as wrong-headed as the Christian campaigner and the pro-lifer? The expressions of irritation or exasperation from the very middle-class middle-aged almost exclusively white audience were the same. It is true that the doctor is made to realise she used a word she shouldn't have but I wasn't entirely sure what Icke was getting at here with regard to identity politics. Is he criticising it, or saying it's gone too far, or both?

But a fascinating and absorbing evening all in all. Though, again, would the the doctor, even one brought up in her privileged world, have used that word?

I thought it odd that, although there was a reference in the script to the fact that there were groups who supported the doctor, the panel was so utterly one-sided. 

I think the key thing is that the word has a racist connotation but is also used in general parlance 
so we're being asked to consider whether in using the word to describe a black man it came from some place of racial bias (conscious or subconscious) or whether she genuinely didn't consider or know the connotation when using it. 

I have canvassed quite a lot of people I have come into contact with since I first saw this play a week ago on Friday and not one single person, including myself, was aware of the connotations of this word. I certainly wouldn't consider myself tone deaf, but I would have happily used that word to describe anyone without an iota of knowledge of what I was actually saying, so I can well believe the Doctor was not aware.  

If it helps any, I've not seen the play but putting together the clues of one of the Mr Men having a name that these days carries negative racial connotations, I am confident I have worked out what word you're all talking about. Mid-thirties, if you're trying to put age brackets on whether people know of this word as being used in a racist manner or not.