YOU may well feel you’ve had enough of party politics and electioneering, but if you want a fresh take on our political system, with a generous helping of laughter, head for Bath Theatre Royal where Michael McManus’s new comedy, Party Games, will be on stage from Tuesday 18th to Saturday 22nd June.

When the tour of Party Games was announced, including its Bath dates, the likelihood of a general election before the summer seemed a distant possibility, but Rishi Sunak’s surprise announcement that the poll would take place on 4th July changed all that, and made this acerbic new play a rather timely look at the British political class in action.

Michael McManus brings an insider’s perspective to the story, which is set just a few years ahead, in 2026, with John Waggner, newly elected leader of the hastily formed centrist One Nation Party, presiding over a hung parliament, a discontented electorate and striking cheesemakers. McManus worked in Central Office while Margaret Thatcher and John Major were Prime Ministers, and as a special adviser to a number of ministers between 1992 and 1995. He was head of Sir Edward Heath’s private office from 1995 to 2000 and was the Conservative Party candidate for Watford in 2001. Between 2012 and 2014, he ran the then Press Complaints Commission (later IPSO).

The world premiere production of Party Games stars popular television actor Matthew Cottle as John Waggner, with the brilliant improviser and actress Debra Stephens as the deputy leader Lisa Williams, and Ryan Early as Seth Dickens, a Svengali spin doctor.

The play is an original production of the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre and is directed by the theatre’s artistic director and chief executive, Joanna Read. She was previously artistic director of Salisbury Playhouse and principal of LAMDA.

Production photographs by Craig Fuller