Patriots is a mighty tragedy about the battle for Russia — review

Patriots

Noël Coward Theatre, London

It feels sadder second time around. Peter Morgan’s mighty play Patriots had its premiere at the Almeida a year ago, with the war in Ukraine a few months old. Today, more lives lost, more blood spilt, this brilliant, bruising political drama about the rise of Putin feels all the more chilling. And although it rolls forward with the drive of a thriller in Rupert Goold’s nimble staging, the elegiac quality that underpins it feels even more pronounced.

A near-Shakespearean tragedy of high stakes and flawed protagonists, at its heart is the battle for the future of Russia. It’s great to see it in the West End: a play of real political heft about a crisis that concerns us all.

Morgan plunges us first into the turbulent collapse of the Soviet Union. Boris Berezovsky, brilliant mathematician turned canny businessman and political fixer, is riding high, juggling phone lines as he cuts deals and brokers meetings, pulling strings in the Kremlin, shaping the news agenda. “If the politicians cannot save Russia, then we businessmen must,” he tells emerging oligarch Roman Abramovich (excellent Luke Thallon). 

But his blazing self-confidence is also his blind spot. Lobbying for Putin to succeed Boris Yeltsin as president, he imagines this quiet former deputy mayor of St Petersburg to be a malleable fixture. The moment when Tom Hollander’s Berezovsky realises just how far he has underestimated the new president has the force of a scene from Richard III.

The two actors are excellent: Hollander’s Berezovsky barrels round Miriam Buether’s scarlet set (part casino, part bunker), bubbling with energy, bombast and passion; Will Keen’s Putin has the tight, cool watchfulness of a cat about to pounce. The play’s lack of interiority is a flaw: it misses those moments of doubt or reflection that deepen Shakespeare’s great dramas. But as we watch the fallout of populism across the globe, it raises far-reaching questions about the routes to power and the role of performative patriotism.

★★★★☆

To August 19, patriotstheplay.com 

When Winston Went to War with the Wireless

Donmar Warehouse, London

Rolling strikes, a government in turmoil, the BBC under pressure . . . it could be 2023. In fact, it’s 1926. Jack Thorne’s latest play, When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, dramatises the battle of wills between the then chancellor, Winston Churchill, and the infant broadcasting company, as the country plunges into the general strike. The role of the media, then as now, is crucial and contested.

Again patriotism, truth and control battle it out; again two driven, flawed men square up to one another; again we see historical figures vividly brought to life. Adrian Scarborough makes an ebullient, restless and ambitious Churchill, while Stephen Campbell Moore is intense and tormented as the young John Reith (founder of the BBC). 

Churchill is adamant that the BBC should support the government line; Reith, evangelical about the potential of the broadcaster as a beacon of truth and impartiality, agonises. Between them lies the future of mass communication, its power to shape opinion, its role in our understanding of events. It’s not just what is said but what is omitted, cries Reith’s colleague, Peter Eckersley (Shubham Saraf), who has seen the poverty driving the strikers. Matters come to a head when the Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to broadcast a critical speech and Churchill plays his trump card: “Am I right . . . in saying the BBC contract expires at the end of this year?”

It’s gripping stuff, the central points hammered out in a series of taut confrontations between broadcasters and politicians. Around them, in Katy Rudd’s enjoyable production, swirls a maelstrom of striking workers, braying parliamentarians, firebrand union leaders, and a panoply of musicians, actors and comedians learning about the possibilities of radio. Haydn Gwynne is wonderfully dry as prime minister Stanley Baldwin; Kevin McMonagle fiery as union leader Ernest Bevin. Delightfully, the entire sound design by Ben and Max Ringham is created live by witty onstage Foley effects.

There are flaws: the collage style can feel bitty and dilutes the focus, while the flashbacks accompanying Reith’s internal torment over his feelings for a young man seem awkward and unconvincing. Even so, this is a riveting, resonant play about the contested arena of truth. It’s also a love letter to radio and its ability to surprise, challenge and transport you.

★★★★☆

To July 29, donmarwarehouse.com

Groundhog Day

Old Vic, London

At the Old Vic, it’s Groundhog Day. Again. The 2016 musical is back — pleasingly, given what a terrific show it is. Tim Minchin (music and lyrics) and Danny Rubin (script) take the 1993 film starring Bill Murray and turn it into a hugely enjoyable and touchingly profound musical about human folly and redemption.

The plot remains the same — cynical, self-absorbed TV weatherman Phil Connors is dispatched to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the local custom of getting a groundhog to forecast the weather. He’s already grumpy about this, patronising the locals and snapping at his colleagues, when he suddenly finds himself plunged into an existential nightmare: forced to repeat the same day over and over.

It’s such a smart idea, combining comic repetition with moral and philosophical reflection. How do we endure the daily grind? If you had your time over again, what would you change? What matters in life? Phil initially reverts to type, using his endlessly recurring day to try and seduce his producer, Rita (Tanisha Spring), to binge-eat or to go on the rampage, confident in the prospect of no accountability. It takes multiple replays for him to realise that it is he who needs to change, not the date.

Minchin and Rubin bring it to stage with deft, mordant wit and cleverly use musical techniques, such as leitmotif, reprise and chorus, to find a stage language for the story’s central conceit. The routines get shorter with each repetition as the audience — like Phil — get to know what’s coming and need the smallest of prompts. Upbeat local marching bands turn nightmarish; innocent lines become weighted with meaning. In Rob Howell’s set the chintzy B&B bedroom becomes a hellish prison, a humble cushion a horror.

But Minchin also brings the same depth and subtlety that he brought to Matilda: there’s an undercurrent of melancholy about the passage of time and how life can disappoint and trap you. “If I Had My Time Again”, a gorgeous duet between Phil and Rita, packs the same emotional punch as “When I Grow Up” in Matilda.

Matthew Warchus’s production bubbles with mischief and invention and Andy Karl is superb as Phil, managing to be thoroughly obnoxious while also persuading you to root for him. He’s very funny — there’s a touch of Cary Grant to his performance — and his transformation is heartwarming. Spring matches him with her spirited, intelligent Rita, who gradually opens his eyes. Repeats can be a good thing.

★★★★☆

To August 19, oldvictheatre.com