Allegiance

The opening of this play made my heart plummet. A narrator reads out the background to the Anglo/Irish situation in 1921 while Winston Churchill dictates notes of his own feelings about it. It's the most ponderous way of filling the audience in on details that they do need as the play develops.

However, once Michael Collins comes onto the scene and he and Churchill start discussing the personalities and politics of the situation face to face then everything starts working. Mary Kenny's play never becomes exactly gripping but it does become completely absorbing.

The two men start as antagonists but slowly find common ground, most unexpectedly a shared love of G. K. Chesterton. Slowly that turns into respect and even into a sharing of emotions as their inner feelings start to show through.

All the advance publicity has focused on Mel Smith as Churchill and, after a slightly shaky start, his was a fine performance. He was particularly good at showing us a man sure that he is nearing the end of his career; a politician in a difficult time trying to do what he genuinely thinks is for the best.

However it's Michael Fassbender who comes close to stealing the show as glamorous, tough-minded, passionate Irish patriot Michael Collins. This is a quietly controlled performance, played with great humour, which his mother should be proud of - she is a great-grand niece of Collins himself.

An excellent set by Caroline Amies and a properly discrete butler played by Robin Browne completes this ultimately convincing look at a politically extraordinary night in 1921.