An Enemy of the People review: Matt Smith’s modish Ibsen revival leaves a political fuse unlit

The ‘Doctor Who’ star makes a daring choice for his return to the stage, but German director Thomas Ostermeier’s reimagining of Ibsen’s play about a man who fights to speak out can feel smug and self-congratulatory

Matt Smith in ‘An Enemy of the People’ (Manuel Harlan)

Presumably, Doctor Who star Matt Smith wasn’t short of options when contemplating his first stage role in five years. So full credit to him for choosing to be pelted with paint-filled balloons every night in a morally – and literally – messy political drama. German director Thomas Ostermeier’s reimagining of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is a probing diagnosis of societal ills, and its subject matter hasn’t got any less relevant since it was first staged at Berlin’s Schaubühne theatre in 2012.

Smith is a natural fit for the title role of Stockmann, a brainy, naive doctor who’s unafraid to become unpopular on his dogged quest for the truth. His performance is understated at first, as he sits about strumming his guitar with his quietly exasperated wife Katharina (Jessica Brown Findlay) plus journalist mates Billing (Zachary Hart) and Hovstad (Shubham Saraf). He’s discovered that his hometown’s supposedly healing waters are a contaminated bacterial soup, scuppering its dreams of becoming a spa destination. But when he tries to burst his neighbours’ collective bubble, the whole town conspires to shut him up – including Nigel Lindsay’s entertainingly gruff factory owner Morten Kiil, bearing a real German Shepherd on a leash – and Smith erupts in fury.

Ibsen’s play is clear-sighted on the mechanisms of corruption, and the ways in which self-interest and fear silences tongues. And dramaturg Florian Borchmeyer makes its message still more biting, carving away at this play’s excesses and adding in direct references to the failings of 21st-century governments.