Mick Gordon's fascinating On Theatre project has, for the past few years, been munching its way through abstract nouns, building fruitful plays around such themes as love and faith.
Up now is identity, tackled topically via a white working-class family in east London whose straitened circumstances leave them toying with allegiance to the BNP. Who better to provide the musical accompaniment, then, than Barking's favourite son, political singer-songwriter Billy Bragg?
Gordon's muscular script, whose scenes slide easily from impassioned to poignant, is far too sophisticated to descend into a Nick Griffin-bashing rant. Instead, it raises a number of pressing, though subtly articulated questions, as we encounter three generations of the Clegg family the day before grandfather Ron's funeral.
To what extent are we defined by where we come from, and the beliefs of those around us? Are brothers Jack (Michael Gould) and Jon (Justin Salinger) fundamentally the same, despite divergent life choices?
Christopher Haydon's promenade production has occasional moments of awkwardness, as we negotiate our way between the sets of a living room, a pub, a chapel and the platform from which Bragg and his band try to convince us that they're not looking for a new England. Nothing, though, can diminish the buzz that this sparky, highly recommended event drama emits.
Until May 12. Information: 0844 412 4318; www.wellcomecollection.org
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