SOURCE: “Holding the Mirror up to Nature,” in Spectator, November 6, 1993, pp. 53-4.

In the following review, Wheen criticizes Hare's Asking Around for merely being the notes and “workings” of real-life politics.

In the days before pocket calculators and computers, pupils sitting maths exam papers would be requested to ‘show your workings’. David Hare has now shown us his, by publishing the notes he took while researching his State of the Nation trilogy for the National Theatre. For Racing Demon, a play about the Church of England, he visited the General Synod and inner-city vicarages; for Murmuring Judges, he spoke to police officers, lawyers and prison governors. His notes on all this are quite interesting, but not quite interesting enough, since they cover ground that has already been well-trodden by many a journalist and sociologist. Anyone who wants to know what the police have to say for themselves, for...