Clarion
Arcola Theatre
London E8
5/5

“FURY OVER SHARIA LAW FOR TODDLERS!” screams the front page of the Daily Clarion’s 125th anniversary edition.

Or there will be if Morris Honeyspoon — the ranting editor who spends his weekends dressed as Julius Ceasar in Mark Jagasia’s darkly comic new play — gets his way.

The Clarion might be dubbed “Britain’s worst newspaper” but it’s the only title with a rising circulation.

After splashing on immigration for 300 days in a row, circulation’s up by 17,000 on the previous year and Honeyspoon isn’t about to change his winning formula because of criticism from “metropolitan liberal tossers.”

When “immigration editor” Joshua Moon (Ryan Wichert), writing a novel about a Hungarian poet in his other life, questions the story’s integrity during the morning news conference, he’s ordered to stand on his chair.

“We’re at fucking war,” Honeyspoon spits at the 20-something, who’s fresh out of journalism school.

“My journalists are hammers. Banging it home. Write it or be gone.”

Honeyspoon, played at full tilt by Olivier award-nominated Greg Hicks, may be a loathsome bully and moralising hypocrite, yet he delivers many of the play’s most hilarious moments.

Though his uncle Ronnie served in the international bridges, his propaganda draws comparisons with Joseph Goebbels. And his swearing matches the prolificity of Thick of It curser-in-chief Malcolm Tucker — he manages 13 fucks, four cunts, three cocks and one shit during one scene alone.

That doesn’t sit well with Clive Pumfrey (Peter Bourke), the strictly Christian pin-stripped henchman of Cypriot proprietor Benny Panagakos, who makes his millions from his “Piggy Honkers” chain of topless burger bars.

An unseen presence, his plans to revamp the paper hang over Honeyspoon’s future.

For starters, he wants to replace once-decorated war correspondent — and currently dipso — deputy editor Verity Stokes (Clare Higgins), who’s racking up £1,000-a-month expenses, with celebrity model Sapphire.

A potentially explosive letter from a reader inspired by the Clarion’s “moral crusade” and leaked to its liberal nemesis the Sentinel could bring the Clarion empire crashing down — and put its journalists behind bars.  

That cliffhanger, coming so soon after the trials of dozens of journalists for phone hacking and amid general election mudslinging, is what makes Clarion such a topically urgent interrogation of British press standards.

Writer Jagasia, a former Evening Standard and Daily Express journalist, draws on his own experience to expose the link between brutish newsroom culture and divisive, scaremongering stories.

His play has a single, powerful message for the newspaper industry and the public — words have consequences.
Hugely recommended.