“Urgent and Unmissable”

So says the London Times of Christopher Shinn's new play, "Now or Later," which opened on Thursday at the Royal Court. Playing out in real time over 80 minutes, Now or Later, in a riveting production by Dominic Cooke, sets up some of the most urgent issues facing Western liberalism and lets them battle it out in the amphitheatre of a US presidential election. With Obama and McCain's real contest for the Oval Office under way, it could not, of course, be more topical. But its brilliance lies in the way in which Shinn marries ideological debate to psychological complexity, shedding light, laser-bright and precise, on the way in which political discourse informs and shapes individual experience. If you're in the UK, this is the one to see.