Robbins unleashes war fury

What a blast of sound and fury the Hollywood film star Tim Robbins brings down upon the London stage.

I was quite overwhelmed by it. Here he is mounting his high horse against President Bush and the American media, accusing them of conduct unbecoming in that misbegotten excursion into Iraq.

Embedded, which Robbins wrote and powerfully directs, sometimes comes at us full-pelt, supported by the massed forces of outrage and contempt, not to mention a little hysteria.

How easy it will be for a pride of lofty political columnists feather-bedded in their ivory towers to write off Robbins's emotive polemic as a juvenile, feebly substantiated assault upon the morality of the Bush regime.

With what glee these commentators will surely criticise Robbins's factually deficient attack upon the American media for metaphorically getting into bed with its forces in Iraq.

It is true that sometimes targets are not so much hit as generally splattered with bilious emotion.

In one of the silly recurrent scenes involving Bush's cabal of sinister advisers the likes of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, in face-masks, are seen leading a troupe of neo-Conservatives in a masturbatory celebration of their philosophical hero, political theorist Leo Strauss.

The incident achieves all the power of a chorus of thirteen-year-old schoolboys in full sniggering mode. Embedded is no cool Anglo-Saxon piece of work and never marshals its arguments with military precision.

Yet there are muted, snapshot scenes of such painfulness and sorrow that the show becomes less an assault upon pliable journalists and more a simple, ritual lament for the errors and horrors of a misguided, contemporary war. Many young people, I suspect, will want just this sort of theatrical catharsis.

Robbins directs his superlative cast on the wide stage as if shooting the movie of the war. Video film brings wars past and present into view. Rock music pounds out anthems of alarm.

Embedded begins as soldiers speak eloquent goodbyes with fears of death in mind. Spotlights pierce the darkness and cast a glow on solitary figures. A father sees his daughter, Private Ryan, onto the plane, apologising for being too poor to afford her the better chance of university.