My Country: a Work in Progress was a reminder of Brexit, what Britain is, isn’t, and should be – review

In the days following the Brexit vote last year, a team from the National Theatre interviewed people nationwide, aged nine to 97, to hear their views on their country. The poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and director Rufus Norris embroidered these vox pops on to a play called My Country: a Work in Progress, and now that play has been retrofitted for BBC Two.

It began with a bewildered, forlorn-looking Britannia, aka “Britney” played by Penny Layden in the feathered helmet familiar from so many 50p pieces, as she gathered together representatives of Cymru, the South West, Caledonia, the East Midlands and Northern Ireland. Her question, basically, was what the hell just happened. Each one of them then voiced words from the real-life interviews. This was intercut with politicians’ speeches from the time, which was supposed to offer a state of the nation tapestry of Brexit Britain.

Of course, the state of the nation was, and is, divided. Those who tuned in looking for BBC bias will have been disappointed, but if the teleplay had a message it was that Britain is in a pickle. Immigration, identity and inequality were all debated by means of different voices offering sharply different opinions. The arguments crescendoed time and again to the shoutiest of peaks, at which point Britney tended to roll her eyes and walk out. The aim, I think, of My Country was to show what disunity looks like – a point that can’t really be contentious given how close the Brexit vote was.

Whether an hour of disunity and dogma makes for good television is another matter, however. We already have Question Time. The prevailing mood of My Country, when it wasn’t anger, was one of exasperation, and that will have been felt by the viewer too – debate is all good and proper but where is all of this anger getting us? Indeed, screening My Country a year and a half on from the referendum was only a reminder that these arguments about what Britain is, isn’t, and should be haven’t moved on one iota.