On the face of it A Map Of The World is a serious play about important issues. It takes in world poverty; third-world emergent nationalism; the decay of western civilization; art and expression; the artist's pursuit of truth and his freedom to express it; the nature of fiction; Capitalism; Marxism; Zionism; sexual expression hetero, homo and bi….

[An] outline does little justice to the sparkling humour and polemical seriousness of Hare's new play. But it indicates the confusion arising from actors playing real people playing actors playing them. Contrary to his publicly televised assertion …, what is real and what is acted is not "absolutely clear" in performance. His claim that Stephen's final abusive tirade marks his discovery of belief in something is absurd. The plot's absurdities are bosh. Would a rabid anti-Marxist be invited to making the keynote speech at such a UNESCO conference? Would a nonentity like Stephen be allowed to endanger an international meeting? Would either man argue it out to sleep with dimwit Peggy?

The fatal flaw which destroys A Map Of The World is the film within the play device. By it we are confronted with people passionately arguing over real issues who, at the point of commitment, are shown to be unthinking, uncaring actors who don't believe a word they say. What price sincerity when, in a significant addition to the published text, Elaine asks of actress Peggy's real emotional involvement: "What for? she doesn't get paid more for feeling"?… [Mehta, spokesman for the right] wins hands down though, arbitrarily, Hare denies him the prize.

Hare's other attempts to put him down won't stick and Mehta is left not, as Hare says, defeated, but mouthing the unobjectionable platitude: "This feeling that we may change things is at our centre—lose that, lose everything". Sincere regard for truth is the casualty in A Map Of The World; the playwright's cleverness scuppers it—"lose that, lose everything".