Howard Brenton’s new play chronicles an intriguing moment in history when Winston Churchill met Joseph Stalin for the first time during World War Two.
OUR VERDICT
©Tristram Kenton
It was 1942 and Churchill was delivering the unwelcome news in person that the Allies wouldn’t be launching a Second Front in France as anticipated, but would instead be concentrating on North Africa, their ‘Operation Torch’.
For the Russians fighting off the Nazi threat, it would, as once Churchill once acknowledged, be news akin to “carrying a large lump of ice to the North Pole.”
Brenton’s exciting, engaging and witty play, with its many contemporary parallels, is briskly directed by Tom Littler and principally focuses on the three-day encounters in Moscow between these two world figures, exploring the many avenues of miscommunication navigated; so much inevitably lost in translation, and yet, ironically, so much achieved without any common language.
He gives both men female translators (excellent Jo Herbert and Elisabeth Snegir) and rightly explores their own dialogue too, just as Stalin’s aide Molotov and Churchill’s ambassador Archie ( also first class) are given their own rueful scenes of frustration with demanding leaders. The latter character brings vague echoes of Humphrey Appleby in Yes Prime Minister and happily there’s much humour evinced here amongst all the high drama and linguistic confusion.
Both Peter Forbes as Stalin and Roger Allam as Churchill are absolutely superb, Forbes bringing a West Country accent to convey the rural origins of the former Georgian peasant and Allam capturing the essence of the more aristocratic Churchill perfectly, never an easy feat.
©Tristram Kenton
Despite the gulf between them of both culture and background, the way these two men circle each other warily and eventually with gusto (courtesy of a late night drinking marathon) is a joy to watch. Brenton’s play charts their journey from initial suspicion ( as each felt the other’s country on the brink of capitulating to Hitler) to eventual tacit agreement, via some near explosive rages and narrowly averted diplomatic disasters.
There are many lovely wryly amusing moments dotted throughout.
The translators reframe the leaders’ dialogue in the interest of international concord and, after Churchill complains of the lack of a gramophone or bathplug, the items magically appear, courtesy of the habitual bugging that the British leader outspokenly ignores.
©Tristram Kenton
Cat Fuller’s set, revolving around a fierce sunbeam centrepiece, conjures little details subtly with headings like ‘The Crocodile’ or ‘Cracking the Devil’s Egg’ beamed up between scenes, echoing the sequence of unfurling negotiations.
The presence of Stalin’s Dickens-loving daughter Svetlana- (Tamara Greatrex, making her assured theatre debut) who’d eventually defect- is a credible foil to the political machinations centre-stage and the play’s concluding moments focus on her story, her subsequent life bridging the gap between the two nations.
©Tristram Kenton
Sometimes her presence can feel a little too neatly placed, but one can understand its thematic importance.
Overall it’s a thoughtful, well-staged play that works well on every level, impressively engaging both heart and mind. It was lovely too to see the presence of so many from the theatre world on press night- from Shaun Evans to Trevor Nunn- in the intimate confines of the Orange Tree, attesting to the drama’s considerable appeal.
Orange Tree Theatre
1 Clarence Street, Richmond, TW9 2SA
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Monday 12pm - 6pm Tuesday 12pm - 6pm Wednesday 12pm - 6pm Thursday 12pm - 6pm Friday 12pm - 6pm Saturday 12pm - 6pm Sunday Closed
