Manor review: National Theatre production is a damp squib that never ignites

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Moira Buffini’s newest play, Manor, steps up to the plate, taking aim at a broad subsection of British society and attempting to diagnose the UK’s various ailments through the guise of a country house farce. You’ve heard this one before: in the middle of a biblical storm, a ragtag group of survivors arrive at a shambling manor house in need of shelter. But ultimately, Manor is a peculiar disappointment, a damp squib that never ignites: not funny enough to earn its stripes as a black comedy, nor incisive enough to say anything particularly prescient about the UK’s political situation. And yet, similarly to the Donmar’s recent Love and Other Acts of Violence, there is an imprecision to Buffini’s depiction of contemporary fascism, with the playwright resorting to a rather cartoonish depiction of the right, which boils down to a vague “women should go back to the kitchen and England should be great again”.