Entertaining look into the evil of man

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GOOD, Royal Exchange, Manchester I SUPPOSE the ultimate praise for first-time Exchange director Polly Findlay is that she manages to make C P Taylor’s drama so entertaining we forget it is about a once decent man’s rationalisation of Nazism.

And there is no doubt this production is very entertaining, even down to the matter-of-fact, almost jolly way Halder (the very smartly cast Adrian Rawlins) talks of life with a neurotic soundtrack: almost every meeting, we see, is accompanied by music in his head — from Bavarian band and American Songbook to Schubert or Richard Tauber.

Taylor’s 30-year-old drama is a remarkable piece, defining the ways good men can abstract basic humanity for selfish reasons.

Halder is sucked in by the flattery and companionship of apparently friendly party members, and his willingness to please sees him write academic papers discussing the pros and cons of euthanasia or the Final Solution — even though his only friend is Jewish and his mother has senile dementia, and both are candidates for the policies he casually espouses.

Halder isn’t a good man but a weak one: the affable university professor seduces his student (Beth Park) and leaves his wife (Madeline Worrall) for her, ditches his friend (Kerry Shale), barely tolerates his mother (Janet Whiteside) and considers his part in the running of Auschwitz relatively normal: he’s actually sorry for the commandant’s stress.

Around Rawlins and the fine front-line cast is a group of supporting players who sing, populate the Nazi party and even manage a turn as Hitler and Eichmann, both perfectly reasonable people — Eichmann chillingly so. This is a remarkably strong production on all counts.

As drama goes, Good is all-too-believable in the way situations change and people with them. It might be that evil flourishes if good men do nothing; but it’s worse if they join the other side.