Politics, justice and ambition collide in debut thriller at Chichester Festival Theatre

“Part of the fun of it is that it is a political thriller and you just don't know which way it's going to go. You don't want any spoilers and in a way part of the fun of it is that you don't know who the goodies are and who the baddies are. It is about a public inquiry into a public scandal about the water supply which since it was written has become rather more relevant now obviously.

“There is a judge running the inquiry and it's about the people that she is making the inquiry into, the politicians and it's about how those politicians react. I'm on the politicians’ side in this play. My character in the Lords and he is a wheeler and dealer. His great skill, or so he thinks, is working behind the scenes to help his allies and his clients who pay him a great deal of money. He is about as moral as Boris Johnson but he has great charm...

“And the great thing is that it is from an unknown writer. I have done first productions of plays by David Hare and Alan Ayckbourn and these are people with such a great track record. You think you know that it's going to be marvellous and you're just hoping that you're not going to mess up. But this is just as good a play by Harry Davies, and it is his first play. He works for The Guardian and I have known Harry for years. Through a mutual friend I met him years ago and we've become quite good friends. He said to me a couple years ago that he was writing a play. I said ‘Are you really?’ I said ‘Can I read it?’ He said ‘You don't want to do that’ but I did and it was another play, another political thriller about a woman prime minister 30 years hence. It was written brilliantly and I sent it to Daniel Evans and then backed out of the picture but Daniel and Harry got in touch and discussed plays and they decided to do a completely different one and that's this and I just thought that for my good offices there had to be a good part in it for me! And I'm really enjoying it.”

Malcolm will be well remembered for his part as General Eisenhower in Pressure in the Minerva nine years ago, a play which looked at the build-up immediately before the D-Day landings and the meteorological projections which allowed it to happen.

“We did scenes from its in front of President Trump and the Queen in Portsmouth. We never met Trump but I got to talk to his security guards but yes it was nine years ago and we did it again early this year in Toronto. We revived it three or four years ago and it was going to go to Toronto and then the lockdown happened but the moment they could get us out there they did which was marvellous. It was a wonderful experience there. By the time we got to Toronto there were only two of us left from the original cast. And I was doing an American accent for the first time in North America. Some American friends came to see me in the show, and they said ‘By the end of the show your accent was really great!’ I think they were trying to pay me a compliment!”

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