What gets my vote?

On election day, here are lots of things to allow you to forget about it for the next few hours (once you've voted. Don't forget to vote)

James Corden, Zachary Hart and Anna Maxwell Martin in The Constituent at The Old Vicc. Photo: Manuel Harlan

I’ve been packing it in this week before a mini-holiday, during which I hope to flex my creative writing muscles for the first time in years. I was never very good at carving out the headspace when I was in a Big Job (and to all those people who loftily say ‘if you are a writer, you simply write, you cannot help it’ - I can tell you, that is utter bollocks) so now that I am not gainfully employed I’m going to try to take advantage of the terrifying gaps in work to do some scribbling of my own.

What to see this week

When the Old Vic team programmed The Constituent, on until August 10, they could not have known how relevant it was going to turn out to be. Evidently inspired at least in part, by the murder of MPs Jo Cox and David Amess, it thankfully is not so on the nose as I’d feared in an election week. The wonderful Anna Maxwell Martin is Monica, a backbencher working hard for her constituents in her hometown; James Corden is Alec, an ex-soldier, military intelligence, now installing security systems but struggling through a messy divorce, dragging him through the family courts. 

In a pretty tight one hour 30 with no interval, set entirely in Monica’s constituency office, Joe Penhall’s new play climbs fairly rapidly to a shocking mid-point, and then deals with the gritty, complex aftermath, as Monica tries to help her increasingly desperate, volatile constituent while following the strict rules of engagement laid out