When Winston Went to War with the Wireless - Donmar

This was “fine” but I never once felt invested, or particularly interested, in what was happening.

Oh I really quite liked this.

Another great play from Jack Thorne as far as I'm concerned - not as good as Motive and the Cue, but still strong It's a little slow to get going, but after about 15 minutes it had me and then it sped along at a nice pace.
Lovely design and idea of how to stage it - it does feel like the text needs a bit more room that is available at the Donmar but Katy Rudd did well with what she had space wise.

Stephen Campbell Moore is excellent as John Reith and I found him to be hugely moving in Act 2. Strong performances too from Haydn Gwynne and Adrian Scarborough.

4 stars from me.

Could i please just ask about the staging for this? We're sat A2+3 on the balcony and a little worried about sightlines.
thanks!

Thank you! Big relief.

Saw this tonight, and I'm not sure how I feel about it.

About an hour before curtain up, it rained in Covent Garden. Not a lot, but enough that the humidity should have been relieved. Somehow, the humidity got worse. The air cooling (or whatever it is they have), in the performance space wasn't working, and as well as all the theatre lighting, the cast were wearing a lot of wool.

The effect of all this is that I think I saw a poor performance - I suspect several of the cast were fighting severe dehydration and were basically slowly being boiled. As it was, there were a lot of fluffed lines, and is Reith supposed to stutter? Speaking of - no idea what was going on with the accent, which travelled around Scotland, Wales, Ulster, America, and, according to someone shuffling out next to me at the interval - The Netherlands. It was all very distracting.

The two people next to me couldn't wait to leave at the end, and I suspect had we not been sat next to one of the aisles where cast were coming on and off that they'd have possibly gone earlier. We also had a phone that went off several times in the second act. They'd have got away with it (old sounding ring tone), if it wasn't for Siri speaking to whoever had hastily silenced it...

As for the actual play - it feels like there's too much going on, and as if Jack Thorne couldn't decide what story they were trying to tell. Is this about the unions? The general strike? Reith v Churchill? The early years of the BBC? John Reith himself? It felt like, in attempting to weave everything together, nothing actually coalesced.

Hadyn Gwynne was excellent though.

When we saw it, Reith seemed a bit flubby - we weren't entirely sure if he was having an off night or if it was a suggestion of a stammer, but it didn't add to the performance.

I was there this afternoon and it also wandered to Ireland (both Northern and Southern), Jamaica, Wales, America, Norway and the land of Garble.

I saw this Saturday night and found it to be weak in all areas except Stephen Campbell Moore who against all odds ( meaning the script) managed to create a three dimensional character. But the play? I think it must have begun life as a Radio Four play - and now it has been fleshed out with other stuff while still keeping the whole radio aspect of it - front and center. I also think it's been in Jack Thorne's drawer for awhile it felt as if the Donmar were offered a "new Jack Thorne" play and had to say yes. The script itself goes in several different directions and I think it's flaw is that doing a play about being "impartial" is anti-theatrical. This one simply wasn't for me.

If an audience member is checking their phone, what do you do? Well, a gentleman, possibly American, in Friday night's show, decided this necessitated a loud "Please turn off your phone!". Instead of a few people being distracted by the phone screen, the whole audience turned to see what was going on, and Adrian Scarborough stumbled over his next line asking for a light for his cigar. But, at least there were no more phones.

Sad to say, that was the most exciting part of last night's drama. I'm very much in the disappointed camp.

BBC impartiality and workers striking for wages to keep pace with rampant inflation are topics that should resonate a century on, but there was nothing insightful for the history here to teach us. It was indeed quite a dull history lesson at that.

Despite Boris Johnson presenting himself as a latter-day Churchill, the truth is that the two were vastly different in looks, mannerisms and politics. But Scarborough's Winston seemed to be channeling clown Bojo, (and Clementine, Carrie). I assume this was deliberate by writer and director. The performance was a world away from the Churchill recorded in archive film.

I too struggled with Campbell-Moore's verbal tics and accent(s). If the real-life John Reith did in fact have a unique speaking style, then to imitate that precisely can have the dangerous effect of making it feel unreal.

It was Haydn Gwynne who surprised me. Not because she delivered a superlative performance -- she always does -- but because her turn as Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was so convincing. I'm not usually a fan of cross-gender casting in a straight play, but she pulled it off remarkably.

The dialogue from Jack Thorne felt lazily written and half realised. He had clearly spent much time researching, and shoe-horned in as many gleaned factoids as possible into character lines without regard for how unnatural the effect.

I'd steered clear of this thread until today, so was unaware of and missed the interval act.

Even downstairs at the Donmar is too hot. They need to turn up the AC.

Two stars.

Act 1: 19:33-20:30
Act 2: 20:52-21:54

I think I agree with most here. It was an interesting and illuminating story with a strong cast and I loved the staging with the on stage foley and the whole design but I did find myself checking my watch a few times.