A silent space, a backdrop half-raised, the enormous printed face on it partly obscured, crumpled. Some plinths boasting nondescript plants. And bananas. A large portrait-shaped screen, looking like an enormous smartphone. A microphone. A man comes in. A fit-looking man in a smart, straight-legged deep blue suit, crisp white shirt, thin tie. His uniform. Business man? Politician? He taps the mic, smiles at us, takes a breath, and starts to speak – confidently, with energy and pace, addressing us directly, acknowledging our presence. He talks of anchors, and frames, and pillars. Level playing fields, and holistic roadmaps. Business as usual is not an option, he tells us.

Just as we are starting to think to ourselves that we have no idea what is actually being spoken of here, it is clever rhetoric without substance, a second voice from the air (or airwaves) interrupts. Political adviser? Campaign manager? Inner self? I’m not actually saying anything here, says the man, and we laugh. Switch. We see him on the screen, sitting in a pool, talking to a lover, complaining of the monotony of small towns, endless hotel rooms, loneliness.

And so it goes. We find out more, as we switch back and forth from live action to screen monologue. He’s a politician in the Blair/Macron mould. Young(ish), vital, lean, hungry. A touch of Obama. Kennedy, even. Taking calls whilst doing press-ups. Trying to solve the dilemma of whether his elder son should drop Latin. Singing Up On the Hill Lived a Lonely Goatherd to his younger son. Sitting in a lounge bar with his rival for party leadership, trying to persuade him to drop out of the race. Talking to rooms full of party loyalists on the campaign trail – could we put chairs up here on the stage with me, he asks. Practising his acceptance speeches. Having phone sex with his lover. Eating bananas (ah yes, the bananas…)

Valentijn Dhaenens, the writer and performer of Unsung, knows what he is doing. Everything that happens onstage is planned with dramaturgical precision and executed magnificently, from the excellent set design and use of props (white shirts in cellophane packages! bananas! plants!) to the snatches of music (Beethoven’s 9th!) to the clever switching from mic on a stand to radio mic to giant screen to regular phone. And what a performance – virtuoso. It’s very good theatre.

But there is a ‘but’. Unsung is far more of a straightforward play than the previous blockbuster BigMouth. The narrative is beautifully developed, but nothing happens that we wouldn’t have expected. The small local references bussed in (Cameron, Thatcher) feel awkward; and the ‘nobody loses any sleep over Europe’ line is a little cringy (the piece is stronger when it stays universal). And the key event – the politician’s embroilment in an extra-marital sex scandal – feels (sadly) rather dated in an era in which we have an unreconstructed pussy-grabber in the White House, with his rival for the presidency the wife of a sexual predator impeached for his behaviour. Real life these days leaves little room for satire or parody.

Yes, Unsung does what it says on the can, ‘unravels the DNA of the homo politicus’, and does so with enormous skill and panache. We see, and appreciate, the rise of the constructed persona and his lust for power, the flawed man behind the public face, and  – eventually – the genuinely caring political person he really is.

But to apply the Tom Morris litmus test: there must be surprises. When the play ends, we must have learnt something new, or had our perceptions challenged. There are no big surprises here: we learn nothing about politicians or politics that we don’t already know, and we need something more than a well-produced expose of things we already know. Like Valentijn Dhaenens’ unnamed politician, Unsung is good-looking, persuasive, clever, but flawed.

Unsung is presented at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018 as part of the Big in Belgium programme.