Funny, short and cheap to stage, Hansard is an excellent bet for a transfer

Hansard is the debut play by actor Simon Woods, who enjoys a deep knowledge of his subject. The characters are a middle-aged couple, the Heskeths, who occupy
‘a country house in Oxfordshire. Georgian. Good bones. Not large’. The year is 1988 and Robin is a busy Tory MP whose wife Diana has realised that she loathes the Conservative party and all its doings. ‘They talk a good game,’ she says, ‘but they’re unbelievably dangerous.’ As a lifelong leftie, she has even started begging strangers to vote against her husband, whose policies ‘inflict damage on the most vulnerable in society’. She also suspects him of philandering and has taken to appearing unannounced at his London flat.

Robin shares his wife’s talent for invective. To start with his insults are affectionate. ‘They don’t think you’re left-wing, darling, they think you’re highly strung.’ Later he gets unpleasant. He asks if her daily workload involves anything more than ‘moving the cushions around on the sofa’.