Nicholas Farrell's Tony Blair is driven by political ambition and survival as much as by idealistic ideology. Farrell captures Blair's smile of insincerity, the earnest hand gestures and the sombre tone to his voice that Blair seems to have deliberately cultivated over the years in his efforts to convince us he is a man we can trust.

Except for the slightly sententious and uninteresting final speech by an Iraqi, Stuff Happens is a play, not a polemic. (...) I like the way Hare scarcely touches on the inner life of his characters - their marriages, their families, their private dreams and wounds. This is an austere play, about the austere choices of politics. It looks unsentimentally at what happens when stuff happens." - Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph The driving force of the play is in fact the articulation not of morality, but of power. (...) Power is the only pure ideal expressed in war, Hare seems to imply, and the only one fully examined in his play. I didn't expect to find this at the heart of Stuff Happens, but perhaps it isn't so much a political play as a play about politicians - an engrossing, dynamic presentation of the political process with all its frustrated intentions and unrealized ambitions." - Nicholas Hiley, Times Literary Supplement An exciting new series written specifically for boys aged from seven to eleven . . . great additions for school libraries and for engaging reluctant boy readers. Outstanding!' Read Plus Today most of physics, and almost all of science, is the study of events — things that happen in the world around us. But what exactly are events? It might seem like a silly question, but modern physics casts doubt on many of the concepts we commonly use to define events: the concept of time in which events play out, the idea of cause and effect that links them together, and the idea thatHare, in fact, constantly creates a form of internal dialectic. The play ruthlessly exposes the dubious premises on which the war was fought. At the same time, it questions our complacency by reminding us of the pro-war arguments. A New Labour politician - possibly not a million miles from Ann Clwyd - admits that the supposed weapons turned out not to exist and that a military victory was compromised by sloppy Pentagon planning for peace. "At the same time," she argues, "a dictator was removed." By contrast, Tony Blair is seen satirically: the hints of a moral crusader are there, but in Nicholas Farrell's performance, he emerges largely as a demented egoist obsessed by his own political standing. There may be some truth in this, but the play would be stronger if Hare admitted that Blair may have been propelled by idealistic motives.

Rumsfeld says that two-and-a-half years later he had learned what happened during his interrogation. "I was surprised and troubled. Some of what took place sounded to me as if the interrogation plan may have gone beyond the techniques I approved." Yet the disconnect from reality, the complete misunderstanding of what is going on in the country and what the United States (and, to a much lesser extent, its military allies) wrought on display here is, in a way, misleading. Hare's embrace of ambiguity is welcome; and as a demonstration of his grasp of the issues and his ability to empathise even with those whose views he finds obnoxious, Stuff Happens is impressive. But as drama, as a narrative that engages and convinces, it is only intermittently successful." - Robert Hanks, The Independent He condemns the media coverage for overblowing the extent of the looting and then failing to report as prominently that in fact only a small portion of Iraq's treasures were looted. This last point is crucial because Hare avoids the trap of agitprop by cannily subverting the play's anti-war bias. You see this most powerfully in a speech, credited to a journalist, that questions our tendency to view Iraq from a local political viewpoint. "From what height of luxury and excess," says the character, "we look down to condemn the exact style in which even a little was given to those who had nothing."When it comes to clothing relationship counselling, Emma outlines a host of gentle processes that will help you ascertain whether you want to keep certain items of clothing or if it is time to say goodbye, from rotating your wardrobe to Irish stylist Annmarie O’Connor’s ‘body scan’.