Fracked!/Malvern Theatres

NOT even the most self-righteous among us would find this comfortable viewing, even though the inherent heaviness of the subject is lightened by a gag-riddled script.

Alistair Beaton’s incisive new work touches many a nerve despite sailing perilously close to the rocks of Terry and June island at times.

Thankfully, it is saved from being too twee by the unflaggingly vibrant wit of the play’s creator.

James Bolam finds himself in familiar territory as the genial old buffer who just wants to spend his declining years pruning the roses and worrying about whether he can remember the security code for his potting shed.

But unfortunately for him, wife Elizabeth (Anne Reid) is inexorably being drawn into an escalating battle to stop an unscrupulous shale gas company turning their green and pleasant village into a moonscape.

Consequently, there is no peace for poor old husband Jack, and this becomes the bedrock – shale, naturally - of some very amusing exchanges.

Mercifully, this play doesn’t descend into a drill hole of political point-scoring, rather it exposes the hypocrisy of us all as we smugly congratulate ourselves on our own moral superiority.

Oh yes, people may agonise about the state of the planet, vote Green, install their bug hotels and bird-feeders… but they then, without a moment’s reflection, drive to the airport in their 4X4s before shedding several tons of carbon on that holiday flight to Tenerife. Everyone’s in denial, no exceptions.

Ironically, revolting PR consultant Joe (Harry Hadden-Paton) is probably the most honest of the lot. He’s a ghastly Frankenstein cross between a 1990s New Labour spin doctor and a present day talent show panellist, slimier than a bucketful of frogs and twice as greasy.

Elsewhere, Andrea Hart as middle-aged activist Jenny, newly loved-up with a toy boy Swampy-type character played with an inarticulate deliciousness by Freddie Meredith, completes this tale of paradise about to be lost.

Fracked! Runs until Saturday (April 29) and is thoroughly recommended.

John Phillpott