Best of Enemies at Noel Coward Theatre

Picking which plays to go to is a very inexact science and I am inspired by several different things. For Best of Enemies it was the presence of Zachary Quinto who I had been a fan of since Heroes in 2006. The play winning a few awards was the clincher.

I wanted to make something of a special occasion of this evening out so I went for a good seat, A14, in the Grand Circle which cost a fair £55.

Helping to make the evening special was the usual visit to Govinda's vegetarian and vegan restaurant just north of Soho Square where the paneer option did the trick.

The play was set in America during the 1968 presidential campaign and covered the ground-breaking debates between the best of enemies William F. Buckley Jr., and Gore Vidal. This was something new to me which helped as I could appreciate the history lesson as well as the drama.

To reinforce the history lesson, the production cleverly incorporated some video from the time and while this was, at times, a little loud and brash it worked well and was a distinctive feature of the play.

The most distinctive feature was the performance of the two main actors Zachary Quinto and David Harewood who we saw both inside their discussion sessions and outside as they prepared beforehand and analysed afterwards. Perhaps it was my left-wing politics, perhaps it was my predilection for Quinto but I thought that Gore Vidal won the arguments but Buckley was still likeable. The play was a balanced portrayal of the debates and was not simple battle of good v evil.

There was a short coda to the story which was told in the present looking back at the impact of the debates and some of the broadcasting milestones since then. It tried to make a point of the change in approach from using informed analysts telling political stories to using personalities but I am not sure that it was a point worth making, it didn't detract from the play and it did not add a lot either.

Best of Enemies was great theatre and was thoroughly entertaining due to those performances, the neat production and the interesting history lesson it gave.