David Tennant as John Halder
(Picture: Johan Persson)David Tennant is chillingly plausible as John Halder, the ‘good’ German who gradually accommodates himself to Nazism in this stark and hard-hitting revival of the late CP Taylor’s 1982 drama. Dominic Cooke’s stripped-back, almost abstract production implicates us all in a remorseless journey towards dehumanisation. It’s become more rather than less pertinent after a two-year Covid delay to its planned 2020 premiere.
Tennant has excellent support from Elliot Levey and Sharon Small but deserves praise for lending his primetime, Dr Who celebrity to serious, challenging work like this. Good needs an actor with his easy, unfeigned charm to work properly. I’ve always felt I could see his brain working in the previous stage roles I’ve seen him in, including his admired Hamlet for the RSC. But this is the truest, most natural performance I’ve ever seen him give in a theatre.
