Yesterday I went to the theatre on my own. I've never done that before. I'd been telling myself for a while I had to get round to seeing James Graham's play Ink, with Bertie Carvel as Rupert Murdoch. This week I saw a poster on the tube saying that it closed in early January. I decided I had to get on with it.
Yesterday morning, using the TodayTix app, I bought a ticket in the Royal Circle of the Duke Of Yorks Theatre for just £23 including agents fees. The view wasn't brilliant but I've had far worse at rock gigs over the years and it didn't prevent me enjoying it.
Ink is brilliant. Fast, punchy, broad, vulgar and thoughtful, it tells the story of the first year of the Sun newspaper from Murdoch's purchase of the failing title from the complacent Mirror group to the introduction of the first Page Three girl. Its climax is provided by the tragically botched kidnapping of the wife of Murdoch's deputy.
The only thing that could improve it would be to see it with an audience more like the Britain the play describes and less like the self-selecting bunch who go to the theatre.
The latter are overwhelmingly white, senior, middle class and would be the first to tell you they have never read a copy of The Sun in their lives and really couldn't understand what anyone would possibly see in it.
Something like Ink should be seen by the widest audience possible. Not because it would be good for them. But because it would make a great experience even better.
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