‘Gibraltar’ at Arcola Theatre

I had a minor embolism when I first opened the programme for Alastair Brett and Sian Evan’s Gibraltar. Five minutes of frantic scanning clearly wouldn’t equip me with a sufficient grasp of this niggardly glitch in the history of the British Armed Forces.

Gibraltar revisits the 1988 shootings of three suspected IRA terrorists. A motley crew of journalists, the eager as well as the world-weary, descend on this densely populated rock to cover the trigger-happy incident. Amelia and Nick (representing the two book-ends of a career in journalism) anchor Gibraltar through its concentric circles of crises: first, there is the parliamentary hash-up then the inevitable media storm and journalistic heavy-handedness surrounding an accusatory piece of TV journalism.

Luckily, the play didn’t fall into the gaping pothole that consumes a good deal of political writing. The towering amount of research that supported Gibraltar didn’t deter either of its writers from producing instances of taut and loaded dialogue.

When Amelia (Greer Dale-Foulkes) arrives as the plucky, investigative upstart, her first exchanges with the cataract-blighted but experienced Nick (George Irving) are well-pitched and painstakingly acted. The latest product of the Oxbridge drama machine, Greer convincingly navigated a young woman’s attempt to ingratiate herself with a new colleague while fending off waves of ingrained misogyny.

George Irving proved capable as the increasingly disillusioned old boy of investigative reporting. His Nick clings to the phrase ‘journalistic integrity’ as the last life raft in a failing career. And he is suitably smug when Amelia’s television documentary is ruptured from within and the young prodigy receives a sharp slap on the wrist. Curiosity, it seems, killed the cat. Or rather the cat’s career.

Gibraltar shows that like an albatross around a journalist’s neck, a search for the ‘truth’ can be a tiresome one. The first scenes had gauged our interest in the characters investigative quest but when the interval was spent trying to digest Thatcherite-era foreign policy anecdotes, enthusiasm for the second act was visibly waning. The continued drama of a journalistic mire was all but saved by Karina Fernandez. She brought the appropriate dose of hip-swinging, Hispanic vivacity to Rosa, the star witness in the political meltdown.

Unfortunately for Gibraltar, when the drama waned (as it did through a lengthy legal scene) there were no jazzy production values on hand to keep you sufficiently engaged. Re-hashing original television footage and photography on television screens has become tired in this setting and produced the opposite of the shocking, transportative effect it hopes to have.

Gibraltar was well-written and solidly acted but the tedious details of the legal investigation made it almost as tricky to understand as how to flush the Arcola’s eco-friendly toilets.

Gibraltar runs until Saturday 20 April at:

Arcola Theatre
24 Ashwin St
Dalston
E8 3DL

Image by Simon Annand