Has David Hare seen the light?

Since New Labour's landslide in 1997, David Hare has acquired a pedigree in bashing its leaders, its policies and its philosophy (or lack thereof). At first glance, his latest effort, Gethsemane, is another thinly-veiled critique: there's a Levy and Blair doppelganger, and Hare's verdict on Blair's last days in characteristically blunt: "Something's deeply wrong. I can't say if your government is the symptom or if it's the fucking problem. Whichever it is, it's ugly."

But beneath this, argues Steven Fielding, the play offers a surprisingly sympathetic account of a politician under pressure, and it ends on a note of cautious optimism. A new degree of subtlety, one might observe, from a playwright not typically prone to it.