When Winston Went to War with the Wireless (NHB Modern Plays)

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The Guardian's Arifa Akbar gave the play three stars out of five, observing that "the story comes in fast, evocative scenes with dialogue delivering lots of information, entertainingly, but not with enough probing" and praised Rudd's direction while stating that "ultimately, we are not sure what the play is saying." [3] A steel-coated document of the icy political waltz between the BBC and Winston Churchill... what is it to control truth and speak truth to power?' Broadway World Directed by Katy Rudd (Ocean at the End of the Lane, Eureka Day) and based on a true story, the play is a gripping and timely examination of the BBC’s independence during the 1926 General Strike. Stephen Campbell Moore as Reith, ten years younger than the youngest of his six siblings, son of a Presbyterian Minister and educated at Glasgow Academy, prays frequently and is shown as a man obsessed by an early friendship and love for Charlie Bowser (Luke Newberry) a relationship which Reith’s daughter Marista Leishman was convinced was homosexual. His own marriage to Muriel (Mariam Hague) seems to have had difficulties. He has a prominent scar on his left cheek after being wounded in the First World War which at the time he regretted because he was wearing a new tunic. In 1926 the fledgling BBC can only broadcast news at 7pm, because there’s a fear that earlier broadcasts might damage newspaper circulation. When a general strike is called, the printing presses stop, and the only source of news is either the government’s own newspaper, The British Gazette edited by Churchill, or the wireless which younger readers will know as the radio.

It should be noted that half way through the interval, a quartet of actors, led by a mischievous Kevin McMonagle, rousingly perform such a variety skit, for those not queuing for the bathroom, in it's entirety. Haydn was due to appear in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends at the Gielgud Theatre in London, however was forced to withdraw at short notice due to ill health. And of course there are plenty of juicy echoes with our current politics, as strikes disrupt the country, the BBC and government remain uneasy with each other, and a Churchill tribute act dominates our politics. But I’m not sure that makes this play illuminatingper se, it simply points out how little things have changed. It was ok. After seeing patriots last week, during which I was engrossed throughout, I was hoping for more of the same. Unfortunately I found my mind wandering during a lot of this. It felt quite amateurish especially the people wandering on and off stage screaming in the first act. There is also only so much fast walking around a stage I could take. As he approaches his final straight at the Donmar, artistic director Michael Longhurst seems to be programming a guide to the history of the early 20 th century. Hot on the heels of a rare revival of Lilian Hellman’s Watch on the Rhine, a call-to-arms against Nazism, and Tinuke Craig’s Trouble in Butetown about love and racism in wartime Cardiff, comes a play about Winston Churchill and the BBC.

Thorne’s play is an unabashed celebration of the BBC and the haunted, brittle man who built it. Undoubtedly, the 1926 general strike was the making of the nascent corporation – but was it also its finest hour? It’s a question that doesn’t trouble When Winston... – but perhaps it should trouble us.

Led by Stephen Campbell Moore’s intense John Reith, the nascent BBC had not previously been allowed to carry news broadcasts on its wireless service prior to 7pm, for fear of stepping on the print unions’ turf. However, they receive special dispensation to report throughout the day during the strike, on the proviso that a government minister (Ravin J Ganatra’s affable JCC Davidson) signs off the bulletins. A fascinating segment of history... the play creates a shimmering sense of the past... Thorne triumphantly uses real history to create a compelling drama that is both amusing, touching and revealing' WhatsOnStage There are laughs too, mostly provided by the variety acts that populated the Beeb in between news segments: Haydn Gwynne's singer's assertion that you shouldn't be "cruel to a vegetab(uel)" made me laugh, though the biggest laugh belonged to the versatile Luke Newberry, whose skit, about the lies he would tell his Mum to prevent her discovering he was an actor, was laugh-out-loud hilarious!If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. The acting is fabulous across the board, but what really elevates the production is the complex writing of the character of the BBC's John Reith, and the concomitant contrary complexity of Stephen Campbell Moore's astonishing portrait of him: grandiose, tortured, idealistic, compromised, repressed, barely concealing an ever exploding fountain of emotions!