Never So Good

Howard Brenton

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781780013619
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

A fascinating portrait of Harold Macmillan in an epic play about the decline of British fortunes in the middle of the twentieth century.

Set against a back-drop of fading Empire, war, the Suez crisis, vintage champagne, adultery and vicious Tory politics at the Ritz, Never So Good paints the portrait of a brilliant, witty but complex man, at times comically and, in the end, tragically out of kilter with his times.

Harold Macmillan, the Eton-educated idealist who rushed, with Homer's Iliad under his arm, to do his duty in the Grenadier Guards, is tormented by the harsh experiences of war and an unhappy marriage. His career in the 1930s is blocked by his loyalty to Winston Churchill, and he nearly loses his life in the Second World War. When at last he becomes Prime Minister he is brought down by the Profumo scandal.

Howard Brenton's Never So Good was first performed in the Lyttelton auditorium of the National Theatre in March 2008, directed by Howard Davies and starring Jeremy Irons as Macmillan.

ACT THREE

The Suez Betrayal (1956)

A field near Chartwell House. CHURCHILL is painting. He sits before the full gear: easel, paintbox on a folding table, large palette, all under a huge umbrella.

MACMILLAN, in a mackintosh, with an umbrella, approaches.

For a while they both stare at the canvas.

CHURCHILL. Can’t do cows.

MACMILLAN. They’re very good.

A beat.

Somewhat…

CHURCHILL. Somewhat what?

MACMILLAN. Legless.

CHURCHILL. They’re sitting down!

MACMILLAN. Ah. Yes, I see.

CHURCHILL. Obviously they are sitting down!

MACMILLAN. The cows in the field are standing up.

CHURCHILL. But in my picture they are not!

MACMILLAN. Artistic licence.

CHURCHILL. What?

They look at each other.

A beat.

MACMILLAN. Winston, the Canal…

Nothing.

The Suez Canal.

Nothing.

The crisis!

CHURCHILL is sunk in his thoughts, not moving.

A beat.

Then MACMILLAN can wait no longer…

Win…

CHURCHILL (interrupting). Colonel Nasser. Did I ever meet him?

MACMILLAN. I don’t think so.

CHURCHILL. A Mussolini.

MACMILLAN. Anthony thinks more an Arab Hitler.

CHURCHILL. No. More tinpot. A Mussolini. That fat king.

MACMILLAN. What fat king?

CHURCHILL. The one Nasser kicked out. Farouk. Met him, in the war. Fingers like barrage balloons, with rings. Did we put him in power?

MACMILLAN. Of course. Don’t you…

CHURCHILL (interrupting). Had a splendid palace at Luxor, did things with boys in it. Had a private casino too. If I’d been a young Egyptian Army colonel in 1952, think I’d have kicked the bastard out…

MACMILLAN. Winston, there is a plan to get the Canal back.

CHURCHILL. Well, after three months of dithering with the United Nations I should damn well hope there is!

MACMILLAN. It’s… a bold plan.

CHURCHILL. Involving Israel and France.

MACMILLAN. You know?

CHURCHILL. Israel attacks Egypt. England and France intervene to separate the Israeli and the Egyptian forces. To keep the Canal open and undamaged. On behalf of the international community, blah blah. In effect, we invade Egypt and get rid of Nasser.

MACMILLAN. Only four of us in the Cabinet know that, including Anthony. How did you find out?

CHURCHILL. Too gaga to remember.

He grins.

MACMILLAN. So what do you think?

CHURCHILL. Got a nip?

MACMILLAN (taking out a flask). Yes, actually…

CHURCHILL takes the flask.

CHURCHILL. Clemmie won’t let me take alcohol out when I’m painting. I think she fears I’ll produce some disastrous, late-abstract period. Or that it’ll kill me. At last.

CHURCHILL drinks. Then…

The night Nasser took over the Canal.

MACMILLAN. Yes…

CHURCHILL. Made that huge speech in Alexandria, over the radio, all over the Middle East, crowd going wild…

MACMILLAN. Yes…

CHURCHILL. Kept on saying the name of the man who built the Canal. Man who built the bloody thing, help me here…

MACMILLAN. Ferdinand de Lesseps.

CHURCHILL. ‘Ferdinand de Lesseps.’ Said it fourteen times, no one could understand why. Turned out to be the signal for the Egyptian Army to take the Canal.

MACMILLAN. So what is your…

CHURCHILL (interrupting). What happened two hours later?

MACMILLAN. Anthony called a crisis meeting in Downing Street.

CHURCHILL. That meeting was his great mistake.

MACMILLAN. I think I follow.

CHURCHILL. You damn well should, you were there! First meeting after a crisis breaks, that’s when success is grasped. Or not. At that crucial, deadly moment, there were ships and marines at Malta. They could have been at the Canal in four days. But he dithered.

MACMILLAN. So if you’d still been in Number Ten…

CHURCHILL. Don’t let’s play ‘ifs’.

MACMILLAN. No.

A beat.

CHURCHILL. Oh, bugger it. ‘If’ the Labour Party hadn’t won the ’45 Election. ‘If’ I had stood down as Party Leader and Anthony had beaten Labour in 1951. ‘If’ I hadn’t waited until ’55 to resign as Prime Minister. ‘If’ it hadn’t been Anthony who took over from me, but you.

A beat.

How worried about him are you?

MACMILLAN. He’s taking a lot of pills.

CHURCHILL. Pills? When I was PM, I smoked seven cigars a day, drank three bottles of Pol Roger and much brandy, what are pills?

MACMILLAN. Anthony is a wonderful political animal, a Derby winner we’ve put our money on for years. The trouble is he was trained for the 1938 Derby. And only got out of the traps in 1955.

CHURCHILL. Very bitchy of you, Harold.

MACMILLAN. I know.

CHURCHILL. There a lot of bitching going on in Cabinet?

MACMILLAN. The atmosphere is highly unpleasant.

CHURCHILL. Moved you from the Foreign Office, didn’t he? Wanted a doormat. Selwyn Lloyd. Always wondered if Selwyn’s simple in the head.

MACMILLAN. He’s excellent.

CHURCHILL. Hunh. Those things.

MACMILLAN. Things…

CHURCHILL. Things you’ve brought in…

MACMILLAN. Do you mean Premium Bonds?

CHURCHILL. Those things. Brilliant. The British love a flutter. Combine saving with gambling, a winner. Anthony must be green.

MACMILLAN. I want to encourage savers.

CHURCHILL. You want to make Anthony sick!

MACMILLAN. I don’t know. Why do we fight so?

CHURCHILL. Fear.

A beat.

We can’t lose the Canal. Lose the Canal, we lose the Empire.

MACMILLAN. Yes.

CHURCHILL. Our place in the eyes of the world.

MACMILLAN. Particularly the eyes of the Americans.

CHURCHILL. Push him, Harold. Use the jockey’s whip on this pill-popping, broken-down Derby favourite of ours. The British flag over...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Original Production
• Characters
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Act Four
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information