Nicky Hager's  exposé of the rise and fall of Don Brash as National Party leader - subtitled 'a study in the politics of deception' - based on leaked emails and internal reports, as well as appointment diaries, meeting minutes and face-to-face interviews, electrified New Zealand in 2006.

It took however one of New Zealand’s most experienced playwrights Dean Parker to mark out for the theatre the underlying issues around human ambition and folly to make this piece of NZ politics transcend its immediate context. Like any Shakespeare history this play has enduring value as a fast and funny as well probing enquiry into the nature of politics itself.  

The Hollow Men reveals the back room workings of the machine that propelled Brash into the leadership then master-minded the National Party campaign for the 2005 New Zealand election.