The National's artistic director Nicholas Hytner is due to pitch up at the London Jewish Cultural Centre (LJCC) this month for an evening's conversation with journalist and TV producer Sue Summers. It'll be a good chance to ask him about David Hare's latest political play, Gethsemane, which is soon to open at the National. The play is said to be a look back in anger at New Labour, though the theatre insists it is a work of fiction. However, it features a populist prime minister, rather like Tony Blair, and a Jewish fundraiser called Otto Fallon who made his money in the pop-music industry and saves the party from financial crisis. As disclaimers say, any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. And so, therefore, will any connection to New Labour's real-life ex-fundraiser Lord Levy. But it'll be no easier to separate the two now that the role of Fallon is to be played by Stanley Townsend, who is perhaps best known for playing Carrick in the BBC series Rough Diamond, a wealthy businessman with a taste for sharp suits and, erm, brushed back hair.
