“…HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB”
That was the subtitle, when exactly sixty years ago a shower of Oscars fell on Stanley Kubrick’s brilliantly tasteless, seriously necessary comedy about nuclear war: a crazed US General Ripper has unilaterally orders B52 bombers to devastate Russia and won’t reveal the secret recall code. Peter Sellers played three parts: a crisp RAF Captain Mandrake who tries to reason with Ripper; the beleaguered president Muffley in the War Room, and an aged ex-Nazi scientific adviser in a wheelchair. Lunacy, hierarchy, confusion and incompetence make it one of the great comic films of all time. I was a cold war teenager, and not allowed to see it at the time.
So on the eve of an American election not entirely devoid of lunatic speeches, in a world once again riven with dangerous wars and nuclear capability, London theatre storms in, to wake that remarkable film’s ghost and set it on stage. And – eat your heart out, ghost of Sellers – Steve Coogan plays not only Mandrake, Muffley and the Doctor but Major Kong, the even nuttier B52 pilot who ignores the recall and finally straddles his bomb in a cowboy hat, yee haa!.
The tale is the same, tweaked beautifully to rouse sharp modern echoes by Armando Ianucci, king of intelligent political comedy, and his director Sean Foley. It’s swift-moving, shockingly funny, and staged with flawless style: Hildegard Bechtler’s set becomes the crazed Ripper’s office under fire as the President tries to get back control, the vast War Room at the Pentagon full of uneasy-colleague generals, and the cockpit of a B52 swooping – actually quite frighteningly – over snowy peaks while its crew josh about women and beer.
Coogan is extraordinary (so are his fast-moving costume and wig crew, who deserve a documentary of their own). He is sometimes, almost, in the same room as his other self. But each part works remarkably and none of them are even remotely Partridgeous. As Strangelove he is necessarily a vigorous caricature, as Major Kong another, but he brings real heart to the anxious, professional, baffled Mandrake in his RAF uniform, trying civilly to deal with John Hopkins’ huge, magnificent, cigar-chomping lunatic Ripper. His President Muffley has moments of reality too. And of topicality: when he mutters that he almost wishes he’d lost the election , a colleague points out tht the other guy thinks he did,…
The bullseye topicalities for today are part of the dark pleasure of this glorious production. Ripper’s conviction that communists are poisoning the pure bodily fluids of Americans with fluoride is pure anti-vaxx conspiracy; his worry about devilishly clever Russian fake voices pretending to be him, or the President, or Mandrake prefigures deepfake tech paranoia today. The Soviet Ambassador is terrified of his unseen President and expects, accurately , to be poisoned any minute. The satire on suspicious all-American values also rings familiar as Colonel Bat Guano is convinced RAF Mandrake is a “prevert’ , and the gung-ho General Turgidson (Giles Terera running wild and stormy) urges the President to “pretaliate” by attacking Russia to stop them retaliating for the mistaken attack. His leading of a prayer at the critical moment is unmissable. And I haven’t even mentioned the Vera Lynn moment. Some may jib at yet another play made from an immortally famous film. I don’t. It felt worth it, and of the moment.
noelcowardtheatre.co.uk to 25 jan
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