The story of John Locke's return from exile in Holland on the Royal Yacht Isabella, 1689.
Starring John Sessions, Joss Ackland,

Saskia Reeves and Rufus Sewell.
A Bandung Production for Channel 4
Directed by Agnieszka Piotrowska
Written by David Edgar
Edited by David G. Hill

Spring seems to be the season of TV seasons, and they're still coming thick and fast. The Channel Tunnel fiasco derailed the various French seasons, but there's no danger of that with C4's 'Bite The Ballot', which begins tonight. This week of programmes exploring democracy has more pegs than most cloakrooms: the results of South Africa's first multi-racial election are expected today; the local elections take place next Thursday; the Euro elections are next month; and it's also 2,500 years since the birth of democracy in ancient Greece.
'Bite The Ballot' is a diverse collection of dramas, documentaries, discussions, films. There's even a star-studded awards ceremony, 'The Charter 88 Bad Government Awards', and a special edition of 'Fifteen-To-One', with William G Stewart quizzing journos, politicians and industrialists on their knowledge of the true cost of our Government. One of the highlights is tonight's 'Citizen Locke', a drama written by David Edgar, produced by Tariq Ali, and starring John Sessions, Saskia Reeves, Joss Ackland and Rufus Sewell (pictured). It is a dramatised account of the return to Britain from exile in 1689 of philosopher John Locke. whose ideas had helped inspire Cromwell's Glorious Revolution of 1688.

According to adaptor and director Agnieszka Piotrowska, the play was 'originally just a presentation of John Locke's philosophical ideas'. Working with Edgar, she tried to move it away from pure intellect and introduce more dramatic tension between Locke's restraint and reason and two more passionate characters - Locke's love interest, Lady Mordaunt, and Sewell's midshipman who becomes inspired by Locke's ideas.

Piotrowska's innovations work well but ultimately the piece still rests on complex philosophical word-play. Viewers' unfamiliar with this period in history may find themselves struggling to ascertain exactly what Locke's revolutionary ideas were, and late on a Saturday night many are likely to give up and reach for the remote-control. Those who stick with it will find compensation for the complexity in the beautiful staging, inventive direction (including dance sequences representing Locke's troubled mind choreographed by Nigel Charnock of DV8), and excellent: performances. Indeed, after Sewell's dashing performance in Middlemarch', the prospect of him playing another brooding, passionate character may be enough to attract some people to tune in. Sewell, however, is extremely wary of spending the rest of his career playing passionate breeders in period drama Passionate I quite like as long as I can play someone a bit limp afterwards. From Middle march" people expect mete do more of the same, and I wouldn't be interested in, playing characters from nineteenth-century novels for the rest of my Life. That's why he's currently playing a working-class Dublin bus-driver in a with Albert Finney and Brenda Fricker. It might also explain the directors has ambitions to work with: 'I don't think there's many young actors wl wouldn't want to work with Scorsese. and I'd like to work with Tarantino says, adding modestly, You can dream, can't you.'

Directed by
Agnieszka Piotrowska
Written by
David Edgar

Cast
John Sessions ... John Locke
Saskia Reeves ... Lady Marsham
Rufus Sewell ... Midshipman Clarke
Joss Ackland ... Lord Ashley
Adrian Lukis ... Richard
Simon Dutton ... Chief Justice
Andrew Hawkins ... Chaplain
Roger Lloyd-Pack ... Captain
Sarah Jane McKechnie ... Pregnant Woman
Carl Proctor ... Sick Midshipman
William Yong ... Dancer