REVIEW: FALSE ACCOUNTS at Upstairs at the Gatehouse 20-25 June 2023

‘A story everyone needs to hear, but one that deserves to be told better.’

In 1999 the British Post Office rolled out its new Horizon accounting system to more than 11,000 branches, and slowly but surely began to find financial shortfalls. At first this was taken to be a rousing success of the software’s superiority over classic bookkeeping, but as time went on more and more of the supposed fraudsters protested and got organized and questions started to be asked. The Post Office, however, was dogged in the face of this defiance, stating that Horizon was infallible and fighting tooth and nail to isolate and prosecute those who fell foul of it, with dire consequences for those accused.

Eventually, after long years of campaigning from the victims as well as investigative journalists, hard evidence of Horizon’s shortcomings emerged and many of the accused have since been exonerated. In 2021 the High Court declared that the deficient system had mistakenly led to hundreds of people being unlawfully convicted in what some describe as the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.

So, what’s the story here? Is it deficiencies in the internal culture of one of Britain’s most august institutions? Is it complex dysfunction at the highest levels of a critical part of our social infrastructure? Or is it about our unwavering yet undeserved faith in technology?

Rather than seriously consider these questions, FALSE ACCOUNTS waves these concerns aside to embrace the issue at its most crude by casting the whole thing as a simple tale of unwitting sub-postmasters mercilessly persecuted by lawyers and executives acting out of fear and greed.

To achieve this the play has two modes. The first is when we are exposited at, directly by either a Narrator or character personally involved in the ongoing saga of The Post Office’s inquisition during the 2000’s. These moments are usually laden with facts or biographical information, feel more like a lecture than a play and often repeat their core point multiple times. I didn’t enjoy these. What I did enjoy were the scenes of the second mode, where the play embraced quite a goofy yet dark sense of humour and turned into something of a satirical pantomime. Memorable scenes here include a union conference in which all board members had pig snouts for noses, or a secret corporate meeting with the CEO doing her best impression of Darth Vader.

Going between these two felt like emotional whiplash: just as you’re connecting with some character’s earnest (if a bit over-egged) plight, you’re suddenly being presented with an absurd and funny pastiche, before once again being ripped away for something tragic like a scene mourning someone’s death. The writer would have been better off picking one of these approaches and sticking to it, but as it stands these modes do nothing but clash throughout the whole play.

The good news is that the play doesn’t get too bogged down despite this narrative mismatch, half due to the continued inventiveness of the satirical scenes and half due to an all-round enthusiastic and engaged cast. Each actor handles multiples roles, some as many as 8, and each are performed well, always featuring distinct accents or mannerisms. The standout performances were easily Victoria Jeffrey who did an excellent job both in the satirical scenes and delivering the best emotional moments of the night in her more earnest scenes, while Francesca Marago showed herself to be quite a talent by handling the immense breadth of all her characters flawlessly, excelling at breathing life into each.

But the best actors in the world can only do so much with a flawed script. With so much meat in this story, it’s a shame the writer forwent nuance and simply concluded that some especially evil people got in charge of the Post Office and did terrible things simply for the sake of being nasty and making money. Ultimately this is a story all need to hear, but one that deserves to be told better.

FALSE ACCOUNTS showing At Upstairs at the Gatehouse 20th June 2023 – 25th June 2023

Tickets: https://upstairsatthegatehouse.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/1173642957

Written by Lance Steen Anthony Nielsen

Directed by Lance Steen Anthony Nielsen & Dickon Tolson

Produced by Lance Steen Anthony Nielsen, Dickon Tolson & Victoria Jeffrey

Reviewed by Harry Conway