"When I was coming of age in the eighties, it was easy to see Labour as distinct from the community-fracturing selfishness of Thatcher’s Tories," says playwright Torben Betts.
"Since Kinnock and Blair took over, however, and began erasing any form of socialism from the Party, that is to say any opposition to the prevailing orthodoxy of free-market capitalism and globalisation, it is hard for many of us (certainly myself) to understand quite what Labour stands for these days."
So, Betts goes on, he wanted to write a play which explores his own "political confusion".
That play is What Falls Apart and it premières at Newcastle's Live Theatre later this month. It's a play, Betts says, that centres on a middle-class Labour politician who clearly set out as a Bennite, and who perhaps became somewhat seduced by the Blair revolution and the coming of political power in 1997, but who now, secretly, feels extremely lost.
He voted for the Iraq war in 2003, despite massive reservations, in order to toe the line and hopefully rise up the chain of command. Now, inwardly disillusioned, not without a degree of self-loathing, and with a growing mid-life crisis, he finds himself standing for election. He has, as a consequence of all this inner turmoil, developed a bit of a drink problem.
The play stars Nigel Hastings as MP Tom Savage, Zannah Hodson as the "criminally attractive" woman who buys him a drink late at night in a Newcastle bar, and Kevin Wathen as an eccentric, teetotal Buddhist barman. It's designed by Isla Shaw and directed by Live's Artistic Director Max Roberts.
What Falls Apart runs at the quayside venue from 22 April to 16 May.