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Samuel West agrees about the play’s contemporary relevance:

And it can’t not be about Afghanistan, Iraq, Abu Graib, Iran, and the imperial attitude that says it’s OK to go into another country without being asked. I’m very concerned about things that are being done in my name and Romans, which states that invasion is wrong and that Republican causes are just, raises some of those issues. (Independent, 3 March 2014)

Reviews were predictably divided: The Stage saw it as ‘Written at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, it is a complex study of conflict, change and the way in which war damages society, crushing old orders and raising new ones. But the remarkable thing about the piece is that, far from being dated, it remains as relevant now as it ever was, astonishing in the way that it holds a mirror to today’s international situation’. For The Times, ‘the play is the most dreadful bilge’; ‘A great, gobbling turkey. Watching it is like spending the evening with a teenage mugger’ (Sunday Times); ‘This repellent play should be consigned to the obscurity it so richly deserves’ (Telegraph).

While the critics’ responses may have been to some degree to be expected, what was not predictable was the audience in 2006. The attempted rape scene was viewed in absolute silence. Not shock, but horrified recognition. It fell into place as an inevitable consequence of the situation. It lost the sensationalism associated with the premiere. In 1980, the audience, many of whom would have been sensible via the media of what was called ‘that scene’, struggled to refocus on the rest of the play. The play thus suffered. In 2006, the audience, whatever its politics, was aware of Samuel West’s list: of war in Afghanistan; of the invasion of Iraq; of the casual atrocities of Abu Graib. The play seemed, and is, relevant to contemporary life. In that respect, little has changed.

What the 2006 production achieved was the intimacy of a large thrust stage with a wrap-around audience, which was closer to the action than perhaps at the National Theatre. This meant that detail became significant. The killing of the three young Celts became all the more horrible because of its closeness to the watchers. Where the first production showed the pattern and sweep of events, the second placed the focus on individuals and small events. Both productions, powerful in different ways, served the play with great sensitivity, and in so doing demonstrated its complexity.

The ‘scandals’ may have evaporated, but the experience of the media assault on Romans did not. It prompted the play that became Pravda, written by Brenton in collaboration with David Hare a few years later.