You only realise how expansive the Lyttelton Theatre stage is when you see virtually its entire area covered by a vast table. This huge trapezoid begins as a dining table, laid with insanely sumptuous dishes amongst which stride an assortment of visionaries arguing in effect that the Parliamentarian struggle in the English Civil War was not just to safeguard the kingdom of England but that of heaven. (Numerological hocus-pocus suggested that Christ Himself would return in 1650.) Later it serves as an enormous desk, with clerks lining each side, even as the boards on its surface are removed revealing an expanse of earth to be tilled by the proto-communist Diggers and Levellers. Es Devlin’s design is as fluid as, Caryl Churchill’s 1976 play argues, the sense of England itself was to many for a brief period.

Lyndsey Turner’s production, too, is as deft and intelligent as one has come to expect of her. She augments the principal cast of 18 with more than 40 community players to create a real sense that this is an entire nation in flux. (The last London revival, at the Arcola in 2010, featured a cast of just six.) The company wear modern dress, emphasising echoes in our own time. However, the obvious idea – that this breakdown in the established polity mirrors the state of British politics in the current general election campaign – does not catch fire. What afflicts us today is a dearth of vision rather than an abundance of it. In the first half’s crucial lengthy scene, a verbatim account of moments from the 1647 Putney Debates between elements in Cromwell’s New Model Army, I felt strongly that the key comparison was not with England 2015 but with Scotland 2014, that passionately engaged, countrywide referendum conversation about what kind of nation the people want.

Actors such as Trystan Gravelle, Leo Bill, Steffan Rhodri and Amanda Lawrence bubble periodically to the top of the mix, but this is first and foremost an excellently marshalled ensemble production. As the first major-stage presentation of Rufus Norris’ tenure as artistic director, it offers not just a heartening but even a stirring vision of its own regarding the role a National Theatre should occupy.
  
Written for the Financial Times.