Right from the centre: The dramaturgy of right-wing politics in Chris Hannan’s What Shadows, Chris Bush’s The Assassination of Katie Hopkins, and Rob Drummond’s The Majority

Abstract

ABSTRACT Reactionary retrenchment in UK society, including the resurgence of national chauvinism and anti-immigration sentiment, has recently stimulated explorations of right-wing politics in theatre. This article offers a reading of three recent productions that illuminate the way that reactionary politics is currently framed, explored and interrogated in UK theatre: What Shadows (2016) by Chris Hannan, Chris Bush’s The Assassination of Katie Hopkins (2018), and Rob Drummond’s The Majority (2017). The article argues that these pieces’ approach towards right-wing politics emerges from anxiety over ideological polarisation and a perceived breakdown in communication in political discourse. It suggests that this attempt to generate nuance, neutrality and complexity while dispensing criticism equally across both poles of left and right on the political spectrum implicitly works to authorise a ‘moderate’ centrist position. While the thesis of each play functions to validate a centrist position that is presumed to be automatically reasonable, the article considers the potential liabilities inherent in such dramaturgical framing in broaching topics relating to the far right and reactionary right.