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ALTMAN reviews 'Restoration' by Edward Bond, which can be seen at the Theatre, Sloane Square, SW1, until September 5. Tickets from £2 (£1 student STEPHANIE Royal Court standby). RESTORATION is an exceedingly funny play, but there is a sting in its tal.

It is set at a time when divisions in society were more clearly defined. It opens with a ludicrous episode. Lord Are (the inevitable pun comes later) is posing, poetry book in hand, in a pastoral setting (so fashionable at the time) in order to impress the lady on whom his designs (not, it is worth mentioning, his affections) are set.

Have things changed that much?

Boost His object is to marry the da ighter of wealthy manuf cturer, nouveau riche, n order tr • boost his own financial position. Simon Callow is sublime in SOCIALIST Organiser needs to develop a more positive attitude to the fight for public accountability of the police.

In Liverpool it is clear that the removal of chief constable Kenneth Oxford is a real possibility. The authorities are scared that they will be forced to grant this demand and that it will set a precedent for asserting the power of the 'community' in otner areas too.

Our task is not to sneer at this struggle, but to give it more force and more direction.

Energies

If a police chief is sacked it will give confidence to workers. It is then up to us to make sure that this confidence is used to take the struggle with the police further, and not to allow the reformist leadership to scatter the energies.

On the front page of Socialist Organiser no.47, John Lister declares that 'there is no way that the police, these hired defenders of the capitalist class, can be made accountable to the workers' movement" • This half-truth reveals that the police always have been and will be a class force at the disposal of the bourgeoisie.

What it obscures, however, is that the character of the police in capitalist society is not determined only by who. 'hires' them, but by the relations between the classes and in particular the struggles of the working class.

The police in South Africa and the police in Britain are both capitalist, but only a political cretin would anore the differences be*1=33 am perhaps. his excesses as Lord Are and Edward Bond accurately parodies the species of comedy on which the play is supposedly based.

The ruling class, Are and his mother, are clever and amusing. And yet the sinister reality is that this can only be maintained by the security of position that comes from the insecurity of others.

The only time that Are succeeds in doing anything effective (apart from murdering his wife) is when he withholds a pardon from his wrongly accused servant (and that in an underhand and despicable way). It is the only time that Are gives way to passion and perhaps true feeling, and yet success for him means literally life or death for another.

The most poignant 'moment in the whole play comes when Are gives the pardon to the servant's mother to light the fire with. She uses it, because she can't read.

Three other characters in the play are important because of what they appear to represent.

Rose, Are's black maid, stands for political awareness. She has inherited the knowledge from her mother that all in her position are slaves, and tries to explain this to her husband, who will not listen.

Her husband represents the illogical reasoning that ultimately leads to fascism. He is exploited in every way and yet still believes that his master must be right.

Are dupes him into believing that he has committed a murder. The murder was committed by Are himself and even when it becomes clear what has happened, Bob will not see the truth and continues to believe that 'justice will prevail in the end Frank. a third servant who gets caught trying to steal the silver, is betrayed by Bob, again out of i mistaken sense of duty, and seems to represent a half consciousness. He is fighting back in stealing the shiver, but does so in the wrong way and is doomed to failure.

The play was directed by Bond and contains some particularly strong visual images. There is a scene in which Are's wife appears draped in white as a ghost, perhaps echoing the hostage in the Worlds', an carlier Bond play Restoration sharp but At one point Frank, the servant, is tied to a chair with white tape while he is sleeping and, unable to get free, he jumps around the stage still helpless in the chair.

Later he is locked in a trunk which is left alone on stage with his muffled banging and shouting going on not subtle inside.

Nearer the end of the play there is a scene in which the grouping of the players presents painter-like quality to the whole and their movements on stage are almost a slow dance. These things add an unexpected dimension to disturbing situations and in a sense lend them greater dignity.

Restoration is an entertainment. It is not a subtle work - the message is very clear. Maybe if we looked at them carefully, we could draw the same conclusions from other restoration comedies, but maybe we still need to be reminded that is what Bond intends.