Clarion, Arcola Theatre, London - review

Imagine this: a tabloid newspaper that prints a daily diet of immigration scare stories, anti-liberal bile and showbiz tittle-tattle, run by a volatile, near despotic editor with a bewildering array of eccentric habits. What a ghastly proposition. Thankfully, the Daily Clarion, the august title at the heart of Mark Jagasia's scathingly funny satire is fictitious. Jagasia, having worked on various papers himself, knows better than to invite the attention of anyone's lawyers.

It's in the offices of the Clarion we find ourselves then, home to a rabid editor, washed-up columnist, dimwit news editor, self-loathing "immigration editor" and thrusting intern. Morning conference is presided over in feverish fashion by editor Morris Honeyspoon, who arrives clutching a Roman helmet and old car horn - the better to dismiss the ideas ventured by his hangdog staff - and expresses his displeasure with one journalist by making him stand on a chair. Challenged on this point, he protests that he is a soft touch: "What about the Post? They run that newsroom like a North Korean death camp."

It's acidly funny stuff and for a while it looks as though pitch-black comedy about tabloid ethics and office bullying is what's on offer. But there is a plot - a letter, which, if leaked, might bring the paper down, a whimsical foreign proprietor dictating editorial policy - and, coursing through the bilious one-liners, a sobering concern with the state of the newspaper industry and with the grim impact on modern Britain of scaremongering headlines. Morris may seem absurd with his expletive-riddled outbursts but there is a chilling zeal to his paranoid determination to return his country to the 1950s.

It's not quite up there with David Hare's Pravda - the plotting is too skimpy and jerkily advanced. But Jagasia drives to the heart of a serious topical issue and creates a set of savagely entertaining characters. Mehmet Ergen's fine cast rise to this with relish. Greg Hicks' leather-faced, snake-thin Morris, most terrifying at his most earnest, is a treat, as is Clare Higgins as a rinsed-out, boozed-up foreign correspondent, still nursing a few dying embers of integrity. There's enjoyable work too from Jim Bywater as the brick-thick newsman and Ryan Wichert as the would-be novelist, holding his nose as he trots out scare stories. Scariest of all is Laura Smithers as the ruthless intern who spots the front-page potential of the death of a colleague and so positions herself as the face of tomorrow.

To May 16, arcolatheatre.com

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