An Enemy of the People review: Matt Smith’s modish Ibsen revival leaves a political fuse unlit

The ‘Doctor Who’ star makes a daring choice for his return to the stage, but German director Thomas Ostermeier’s reimagining of Ibsen’s play about a man who fights to speak out can feel smug and self-congratulatory

Matt Smith in ‘An Enemy of the People’ (Manuel Harlan)

Presumably, Doctor Who star Matt Smith wasn’t short of options when contemplating his first stage role in five years. So full credit to him for choosing to be pelted with paint-filled balloons every night in a morally – and literally – messy political drama. German director Thomas Ostermeier’s reimagining of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is a probing diagnosis of societal ills, and its subject matter hasn’t got any less relevant since it was first staged at Berlin’s Schaubühne theatre in 2012.

Smith is a natural fit for the title role of Stockmann, a brainy, naive doctor who’s unafraid to become unpopular on his dogged quest for the truth. His performance is understated at first, as he sits about strumming his guitar with his quietly exasperated wife Katharina (Jessica Brown Findlay) plus journalist mates Billing (Zachary Hart) and Hovstad (Shubham Saraf). He’s discovered that his hometown’s supposedly healing waters are a contaminated bacterial soup, scuppering its dreams of becoming a spa destination. But when he tries to burst his neighbours’ collective bubble, the whole town conspires to shut him up – including Nigel Lindsay’s entertainingly gruff factory owner Morten Kiil, bearing a real German Shepherd on a leash – and Smith erupts in fury.

Ibsen’s play is clear-sighted on the mechanisms of corruption, and the ways in which self-interest and fear silences tongues. And dramaturg Florian Borchmeyer makes its message still more biting, carving away at this play’s excesses and adding in direct references to the failings of 21st-century governments.

Still, if getting angry about politics is pretty timeless, some elements of this production feel a mite dated. German theatre directors including Ostermeier have provided a toybox of ideas for their British counterparts to raid over the past few decades, meaning that this 12-year-old production’s scratchy chalk slogans, paint balloons and smug indie-rock covers between scenes don’t feel as radical as they probably once did.

The targets of its actual critique also feel frustratingly vague. Last year, Daniel Raggett’s hit take on another classic, Accident Death of an Anarchist, confronted police corruption in a laser-guided volley of stats and fury. By comparison, the laconic detachment of Ostermeier’s production periodically tips into smugness. In the second act, Stockmann stands before a town hall meeting to make his case, railing against the complacency of the liberal majority. But Ostermeier’s directorial approach here seems designed to reinforce, not challenge, self-congratulatory types. The audience is asked to raise their hands if they agree with a series of pretty uncontroversial leftie talking points; a forest of arms springs into the air. Then, the mic gets passed round for people to air their views. Perhaps it’s the polite formality of the setting, perhaps it’s the self-selecting nature of the audience for European drama, or perhaps some of the speakers are just audience plants, but the tone here is more Gardener’s Question Time than explosive LBC phone-in.

Matt Smith (Dr Stockmann) and Nigel Lindsay (Morten Kiil) in ‘An Enemy of the People’ (Manuel Harlan)

There’s no room for real debate or danger. Still, if this isn’t the kind of production that’ll send people out fighting into the night, it’s got a gentler kind of message to impart. In Ibsen’s original, Stockmann is a pariah who’s chased out of town for his views. Here, the audience largely agrees with him, so his presence becomes a quiet reminder that airing your viewpoint only brings a fleeting kind of catharsis – to really drain the swamp, you’ve got to get off your soapbox and actually do something.

Duke of York’s Theatre, until 6 April