Review: The Ayes Have It! The Ayes Have It!, Leicester Square Theatre

Review: The Ayes Have It! The Ayes Have It!, Leicester Square Theatre

Summary

Rating

80

Excellent

It might be structured like any good panto with its heroes and villains, but it’s a fun and entertaining show with real-time political debate playing out in front of you.

This house believes that Brexit has been a disaster and now must be reversed.

This interesting concept for a show, devised by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, considers political debates, adds some performance, and, voila! It becomes fun.

Don’t expect to hear anything new; the “cast” have been put together to present the best and the worst aspects of the Brexit debate that still rumbles on today. Adroitly managed by ex-speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, the show romps along with each speaker, allotting time to convince us of their point of view.

It was clear from the beginning that, indeed, the ‘Ayes’ would have it, given the reactions of the audience members. The ‘No’ panel appeared to have been chosen for their stereotypical viewpoints: TalkTV host Mike Graham admitted he had no facts to present that would persuade us that Brexit was a good idea. Despite this, he continued to rant and throw insults at the ‘Yes’ panel – thankfully not as colourful as the WhatsApp messages we’ve been hearing recently. As a pantomime dame, he fulfilled his role. Unfortunately, Baroness Claire Fox was equally ranting, and while this might have been entertaining for a while, her inability to answer straight questions, not unusual for politicians, considerably undermined the case for the Nos. David Davis MP struggled on, manfully leading the debate for the Nos and calmly presenting a picture of a corrupt EU, suggesting the growth situation was not as bad as we were told. The Nos, however, were up against some heavyweight remainers.

Led by former First Minister Alex Salmond, the Yes debate made short work of hecklers and the Nos alike. Gina Miller and LBC’s Andrew Marr gave impassioned speeches about sovereignty, democracy, and their love of Great Britain. They did admit that their campaign to remain had been flawed, and they should have pushed back more. One interesting, but not new, declaration was that the Leave campaign did not expect to win and did not have a plan for what would happen if they did, so no surprises there.

While The Ayes Have It! The Ayes Have It! is a show, and there to entertain, they did give us something that we don’t hear enough of: the views of younger people. Forget about the dyed-in-the-wool politicians and reporters; two year thirteen students from a local academy bravely presented their arguments for and against the motion. In contrast to the established speakers, the young lady speaking for the Yes panel spoke from the heart about what they had hoped their lives would be like—issues such as travel, education, home ownership and an issue that had been ignored until her speech, climate change and green issues were all tackled. I felt very sorry for the young man arguing for the Nos. It was a difficult argument to make when he clearly would have preferred to be on the Yes side, but he ploughed on and made his case.

A short interjection with impersonations of political leaders, and then we were onto questions from the floor. Like the house of commons, the audience members seemed unable to ask succinct, one sentence questions and the responses from the panel were often equally unfocused. Given all that, indeed as predicted, the Ayes did have it. It was a fun and interesting evening.

---

Produced by: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh

The Ayes Have It has completed its current run.