Review: A Day At The Racists

At the Finborough, Anders Lustgarten's A Day at the Racists is the best new political play of recent times. It reflects uncomfortable realities - not only about why people vote for the BNP, but how the white working-class has been betrayed by the Left.

Remember the misplaced self-congratulation that followed the BBC Question Time with Nick Griffin? The BNP leader's fellow panellists took easy pot shots at him, but failed to address the reason why he attracts votes.

Lustgarten's play bravely and, more importantly, coherently grasps that nettle. Set in east London, its working class hero Pete (Julian Littman) used to be a union leader who went toe-to-toe with neo-Nazis in the '70s but is now reduced to life as a jobbing decorator. Cheap Polish labour is winning contracts from Trevor, Pete's black boss and best mate; the local housing policy may be based fairly on need but it results in locals such as Pete's son Mark being bumped off the housing list by larger immigrant families; the schools teach his mixed-race granddaughter ethnic history at the expense of British history, forcing Pete into racially loaded language that he never intended to use.

But his hatred for the racist far right runs deep, as does the old scar he received from a Nazi thug. So for Pete, voting BNP in the coming election is unthinkable, much less campaigning for them. Until that is the local BNP candidate turns out to be an attractive lady of Pakistani descent.