COUNTED? is a documentary-play about British democracy and why it is missing the X factor.

Based on interviews with the people of West Yorkshire conducted by Stephen Coleman, director of research at Leeds University, it tells “the real stories of real people, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, funny, passionate and confused”.

It has opened in Leeds in the shadow of a General Election that has left Britain with the nervous novelty of a coalition government and more questions about whether our electoral system works.

Democracy should make you feel in control but leaves you feeling it is out of your control, posits Simon Poland’s Eliot Wilson, professor of political communication, narrator and sounding board.

Desert-booted and personable, if rather dry, this self-assured opinion pollster spins his theories while conducting interviews with Balvinder Sopal, Donna Berlin, Peter Stickney, Jamie Zubairi and (the outstanding) Molly Taylor’s assorted characters across Yorkshire.

The resulting tone is both serious and humorous, the devised work by Look Left Look Right theatre company’s Ben Freedman and Mimi Poskitt and Leeds University professor of drama Stephen Bottoms being more linear reportage than provocative docu-drama. The political arguments and pace are both too flat, yet without taking political sides Counted? still paints a troubling picture of a political system that is increasingly failing all voters, whether they vote or not.

Through Wilson’s observations, Counted? suggests we want to vote but maybe for something different, based on issues that truly affect our lives, so that we really do feel we count. A forlorn hope, you fear, as that will surely take more than electoral reform.

Counted?, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, tonight and tomorrow at 7.45pm; Saturday, 2.30pm and 7.45pm. Box office: 0113 213 7700.