The Last Days of Liz Truss

Irrespective of your political leanings, you’ll be hard pushed to find someone who will publicly come out in support of Liz Truss. Confined to the history books for all the wrong reasons: the UK’s shortest serving PM, the PM when the Queen died, and the architect of an economic policy that took Britain to the edge of economic collapse. Add to that a public persona akin to jester rather than a serious politician, and it’s easy to see why her public backing is in short supply.

But all of this is why she’s such a fascinating character. How can someone with apparently no decent public speaking skills or no apparent charm rise to the top of British politics and then so emphatically bodge the job up?

The Last Days Of Liz Truss is a surprisingly balanced and positive glimpse into her rise and fall. We get an idea of how a headstrong Mary Elizabeth Truss dug her heels in at a young age in order to be called Elizabeth and not Mary. How she hates being told what to do. How she longed for control and authority. And, how she saw options that would make her life better and went for it hook, line and sinker.

It would be so easy to lampoon Ms Truss. There’s enough memes and video clips of her performing sub-optimally’ in interviews and political conferences to do a whole raft of shows. But Greg Wilkinson’s script is significantly more deft and deeper. Whilst a whistlestop tour of her rise and fall, there’s more than enough heart to make you realise that Truss is more than the political caricature we may remember her by. And Emma Wilkinson Wright’s portrayal is far from caricature, it’s a balanced and nuanced portrayal of a determined women frustrated by a broken political system.

Whilst there is much comedy in Wilkinson’s show, this is a more serious and considered portrayal than one might expect, and it does show a side of Truss that’s rarely presented. An educated, thoughtful lady who is driven by an inherent desire to make Britain, and the British, better.

This is a fascinating and entertaining production that will open your eyes to both Liz Truss and, more importantly, to a stymied and broken political system that doesn’t allow for change. It’s stark warning that, in 10 years, this will all come back to bite us in ways that we can’t imagine, and her pondering of an alliance with Nigel Farage, are not the mutterings of a crazed person, but someone trying to make an impactful change.

Sonny Waheed