Comic twist for the original tale of terror

5/11 @ Chichester Festival

Okay, the title is terrible, and the equation of the mysteries surrounding the Gunpowder Plot with contemporary acts of Islamic terrorism is strained. But Edward Kemp's exploration of the events of 5 November, 1605, still makes for an engrossing evening.

This is not a history play: Kemp's slangy language and Steven Pimlott's staging are modern and theatrical. It is, though, a gripping analysis of what religious belief and disempowerment lead some men to do.

When James I succeeds Elizabeth I, England's Catholics hope for a ruler who will unite the country, end the war with Spain, and foster religious toleration. What they get is a bisexual popinjay (Alistair McGowan, with a "see-you-Jimmy" accent and a comedy beard) who leaves his coronation to cruise for rough trade and loots the state. The idea of destroying him and Parliament festers slowly. Meanwhile, watching over the paroxysms of society is the ruthless politicker Sir Robert Cecil (Hugh Ross).

Kemp is good on the intrigue, and the sly justification of murder through religious sophistry, although he gets bogged down in the sea of names, family relationships and different shadings of Papist sympathy.

His script is funny, and cheeky: he gives McGowan lines worthy of a pantomime dame and plagiarises Macbeth and the Sermon on the Mount, but it works. Pimlott fills the stage with noise and fire and Vivienne Westwood-inspired costumes, and although he lays the homoeroticism on a bit thick, he also involves the audience perfectly. It's good to see a big, brash play that engages with our past and present, however imperfectly.