Safe Haven is a history play by Chris Bowers who worked for the Foreign Office and later for the UN as a human-rights activist. The two careers seem to be interchangeable. His drama follows an idealistic and oversensitive Oxford graduate, Catherine, who joins the diplomatic service during the first Gulf War in 1991.

Catherine believes that the Foreign Office exists to throw money at basket-case countries that lack the maturity to govern themselves. The entire department acts as a sort of puppy rescue service for dysfunctional nations overseas. All her colleagues accept the wisdom of this approach even though it has the same effect as casting diamonds into quicksand.

Catherine responds to historic events like a homeowner assessing a new lamp for the guest bedroom. ‘It doesn’t feel right,’ she says when asked about Britain’s military withdrawal after the fall of Saddam Hussein. She reacts to the plight of the Kurds by exclaiming: ‘What does this say about us?’ Sentimentality and fear of criticism are her over-riding concerns rather than Britain’s national interest.

And yet she’s a high-flyer at the Foreign Office where her career is being nurtured by a jingoistic technocrat named Clive. He speaks in cricketing........

© The Spectator