From lord of the manor to a lone voice in fight for free speech: QUENTIN LETTS' first night review of An Enemy of the People

By QUENTIN LETTS FOR THE DAILY MAIL

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Hugh Bonneville playing a champion of truth, outraged by suppression of free speech? 

This is the intriguing casting down at Chichester where Mr Bonneville, fresh from his lordly turn in TV’s Downton Abbey, abandons the aura of privilege to give a watchable performance as naive, high-minded man of the people Dr Stockmann.

Chichester audiences should enjoy this richly-staged production. The entourage is of a high calibre and Howard Davies’s direction is assured. There is a particularly good crowd scene, the citizenry shouting from the auditorium’s aisles. We see that the line between mob rule and democracy is indeed a slender one.

Actor Hugh Bonneville, 52, who played Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey, was widely-applauded on the opening night of his current role in the play An Enemy of the People at the Chichester Festival Theatre (right)

Hugh Bonneville playing a champion of truth, outraged by suppression of free speech? This is the intriguing casting down at Chichester where Mr Bonneville gives a watchable performance as naive Dr Stockmann

Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville stars as Dr Stockmann in the production of An Enemy Of The People

Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville stars as Dr Stockmann in the production of An Enemy Of The People

Theatregoers may be drawn primarily by the presence of Mr Bonneville. He delivers a commanding performance when Stockmann is the affable, confident father. He becomes marginally less convincing when Stockmann wobbles and weeps; yet here is an actor with distinct stage presence.

The greatness of Ibsen’s An Enemy Of The People is that it retains its fury at power while still showing us all sides of the argument. Stockmann has discovered that the expensive new spa in his home town – where his brother is mayor – is using poisoned water. He supposes this discovery will make him a hero.

The local newspaper says it will print the exposé. Then the cogs of commerce and politics turn and we have a brilliant dramatic representation of that dishonourable newspaper practice known as the ‘reverse ferret’.

The mayor (William Gaminara) points out that the town could be bankrupted if the spa is closed. The shopkeepers’ leader (Jonathan Cullen) panics. The newspaper’s editor (Adam James) capitulates. Whistleblower Stockmann has been stitched up. When the public meeting is whipped against him, he is nearly lynched.

Theatregoers may be drawn primarily by Mr Bonneville's presence, thanks to his commanding performance

Theatregoers may be drawn primarily by Mr Bonneville's presence, thanks to his commanding performance

This sort of thing can happen. Just look at the way some Right-wing editors are at present surrendering their principles to the pro-EU brigade. This play never loses its sting. A few years ago I would watch it and think of the suppression of anti-vaccine research. Today we may think, perhaps, of the cover-up after the Hillsborough disaster.

Director Davies, making handsome use of Chichester’s large stage, sets this production in the 1930s or 1940s: trilbys, flapper hats, one of the women in high- waist trousers.

This makes for a handsome spectacle but there is a danger in modernising the tale. For we might start asking ‘where, Mr Ibsen, are the lawyers?’ It may have been different in 19th-century Norway but no story of free speech today, or even in the 20th century, is complete without the scurvy presence of those distinct enemies of the people, the lawyers.

Not that Ibsen was interested solely in the debatable topic of press restraint.

He was raising nobler questions about loyalty to conscience. The true soul must be prepared to be unpopular. That is as true of politicians, actors, journalists, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

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