BRITAIN’S leading left-wing playwright is engaged in a furious dispute over claims that he allowed his political prejudices to distort the truth in his play about rail privatisation.

Sir David Hare has come under fire from leading figures in the rail industry over The Permanent Way, which is enjoying a sell-out run at the National Theatre.

The playwright claims the drama has attained the highest “level of truthfulness” because he and the theatre company conducted dozens of interviews with railwaymen and train crash victims.

The Permanent Way is presented in a documentary style, with actors speaking what Sir David says are often the precise words used by the people interviewed.

Rail industry leaders, some of whom are depicted in the play, accuse Sir David of cynically manipulating their words and being cavalier with the facts. They concede that he has created a powerful piece of theatre but say this is exactly why the play is so dangerous.

There is a growing view in Westminster that the play chimes with the popular opinion of the railways. Several senior politicians, including Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, and Michael Portillo, the former Conservative Cabinet minister, have been to see it.

The industry leaders are particularly incensed by Sir David’s claims that private rail companies and politicians not only presided over declining safety standards but maltreated the victims of the resulting crashes. They argue that, by portraying real people and claiming to use their words, Sir David tricks the audience into mistaking fiction for fact.

Adrian Lyons, directorgeneral of the Railway Forum, an industry lobby group, wrote to Sir David before opening night asking him to correct the play’s central message that privatisation had made the railways dangerous.

Mr Lyons pointed out that the rate of train crashes had halved since BR was broken up and sold off in 1994-96. While the privatised industry had suffered a series of high-profile crashes at Southall, Ladbroke Grove, Hatfield and Potters Bar, none had resulted in as many casualties as the disaster at Clapham in 1988, in which 35 people had died.

In the exchange of letters, Sir David accused Mr Lyons of having a “rosy view” of the railways and of representing an industry that had treated the bereaved with “stunning and brutal insensitivity”.

When Mr Lyons wrote back to defend the industry’s treatment of victims, Sir David sent a one-sentence reply deploring his “ungovernable impulse to waste time defending the indefensible”.

Mr Lyons told The Times: “David Hare has allowed his political prejudices to strip his play of the validity of a documentary which he purports to offer. The public are being manipulated and misled by this play. It focuses on the victims but it can’t be correct to allow rail accidents to define rail policy.”

Mr Lyons said Sir David had failed to address the issues he raised in his letters. “Just like one of the scheming politicians he portrays, Hare fails to answer my questions.”

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax