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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

Best of Enemies review – stylish staging of a landmark TV clash

Gore Vidal William F Buckley Jr David Harewood James Graham Zachary Quinto Noël Coward Young Vic
Immense intelligence … David Harewood as William F Buckley Jr and Zachary Quinto as Gore Vidal in Best of Enemies at the Noël Coward theatre.
Immense intelligence … David Harewood as William F Buckley Jr and Zachary Quinto as Gore Vidal in Best of Enemies at the Noël Coward theatre. Photograph: Johan Persson

Could a grainy broadcast debate between two opposing US thinkers in 1968 really have turned politics into a televisual popularity contest? James Graham’s fabulous, frenetic play concerns the clash between Gore Vidal, speaking for the New Left, and William F Buckley Jr on the New Right, in the lead-up to the presidential elections. It seems to trace a line from that moment to the birth of pugilistic, celebrity-led TV politics that feeds our culture wars, fuels Twitter’s silos and has enabled the likes of Donald Trump (as it is heavily hinted) and Matt Hancock of the jungle.

In a production directed by Jeremy Herrin, some of those associations seem strained, but this is a fascinating moment captured with immense intelligence and verve.

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