In this solo reading, playwright David Hare gives his personal, exasperated response to the “defensive” wall Israel is building along its borders and, in places, deep into occupied Palestinian territory.

As a follow-up to his earlier Middle East monologue Via Dolorosa, and a companion piece to his more recent Berlin, it suggests humanity has learned nothing since the 1940s. Probably longer.

The form is a strange but powerful one. It gives us a writer’s insights and feelings, dramatically organised but uncluttered by fiction. It also sometimes feels like a lecture from a man frustrated that not everyone thinks as clearly and cleverly as he.

Dapper in black jeans, under the direction of old friend Stephen Daldry, Hare stands on a bare stage, stabbing the air with his glasses, discarding pages as he goes. His words are compelling.

By failing to find an accommodation with the Palestinians, Israel has given up its ideals and any hope of the “normality” it craves. The wall has left moderate Palestinians hostage to extremists, who have simply substituted suicide bombs for rockets. The wall is a concrete symbol of inhumanity but also of surrender.

Hare is not partisan, and you sense that, if he could knock both nations’ heads together, like a stern headmaster, he would. He puts the issues admirably succinctly, backs them up with boggling statistics and grim first-hand material, and refuses to come up with easy answers. He is by turns amused by the absurdity of the situation, then almost petulantly disappointed, then blazingly angry.

These monologues are awkward experiences but always formidably well informed, engrossing and passionate. Credit to Hare for stepping to the other side of the keyboard.
Tonight and tomorrow (020 7565 5000, www.royalcourttheatre.com).