At The End Of The Day

The British may criticise their politicians as much as they like, but they can also laugh at them, and that is what John Mills, Dulcie Gray and Michael Denison ask audiences to do in William Douglas Home's "At The End of the Day".

The sitting-room at Number Ten Downing Street makes a contemporary, yet offbeat setting for this flippant, captivating look at our top men, before and immediately after a General Election. The "Panorama" cameras look in for a close-up interview with a brash pipe-smoking Prime Minister with a North Country accent, one Henry Jackson, letting slip to the nation the scoop news of an Election.

John Mills is the bluff, cocky and so quickly-deflated Prime Minister. Even his walk conveys the various degrees of desperation as the TV set brings the news of how Opposition votes are piling up. He gets most of the action but there is a meaty role for Dulcie Gray, who succeeds admirably in conveying his homely wife, first echoing her husband's views, then turning on him for his arrogance. Closed-circuit television brings modern electronics to the set, and the first live sight of Michael Denison is on a TV screen being interviewed on "24 Hours", but he then arrives in the flesh, complete with obsequious private aide and furniture van, having consigned the outgoing occupants to a rural weekend at Chequers. There is an amusing ending to the fun which must not be disclosed, except for the mention that, probably in the final five minutes, sharp audience members will spot the tag and see how it is all going to wind up, as flippantly as it began.

The playwright makes the television interviewer, played by Jack May, a sort of Robin Day billed as Martin Knight, step over the mark and his opening chat with Mills could benefit from less of the far-fetched. There is a juicy cameo of a furniture removal man by Ron Pember, who has remarks to make to both Prime Ministers.I

In the lightsome Douglas Home tradition, the play offers pleasant diversion that does not puzzle or set problems, and proves enjoyable. It is for playgoers who may relish lampoons of Prime Ministers and their wives and private aides, and the endless jargon of clichés like the one providing the title merely amuse, although there must be a moral to them, too.

Henry Jackson Prime Minister	John Mills
His Wife	Dulcie Gray
Leader of the Opposition	Michael Denison
Martin Knight TV interviewer	Jack May
Removal Man	Ron Pember