Hope, Royal Court, review: a play about spending cuts that dodges gloominess
Hope presents an impossible task. A Labour council in an unamed working class town must cut £22million. There's a cap on tax, and they've shut the urban farm; now they must slash care for the young, the elderly or the disabled… which proves a deeply personal, as well as political, decision in Jack Thorne's timely play. Everyone knows someone affected - everyone has their own special pleading.