As the world’s imperialist powers continue to play with fire from Lebanon to Ukraine, the new stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 comedy Dr Strangelove couldn’t come at a better time.
Set during the Cold War era, when tensions between American imperialism and the Soviet Union dominated the world, Dr Strangelove is an apocalyptic comedy of errors.
An American Air Force general losing his marbles and falling for conspiracy theories – a depiction that would fit much of the US establishment today! – sets off a chain reaction of events that culminates in the destruction of all life on Earth by the nuclear ‘Doomsday Machine’.
Steve Coogan (of Alan Partridge fame) is hilarious in four different roles, including the titular Dr Strangelove.
But Coogan really shines as the bumbling US president Merkin Mufflin. This ridiculous character is just as foolish as a Biden, a Trump, or a Harris. The only difference is that today’s leaders are just as idiotic, but a touch more hawkish.
Playwright Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, The Death of Stalin) continues his streak of beautifully exposing liberal hypocrisy in his work, while completely embracing it in his personal politics.
In fact, while the humour is updated – usually very well, only occasionally at the expense of the timeless quality of the original film – the political critique in this play is just as biting as it was in the original film.
The complete irrationality of this system is humorously exposed throughout the play. Dr Stangelove reveals how on both sides of the Cold War, real power was in the hands of small, insular bureaucracies, instead of the people they supposedly served.
The recycling of a former Nazi scientist (Dr Strangelove) in the service of the war machine highlights a fundamental truth that many were forced to learn after the end of WW2: war is not a personal choice made by particularly bloodthirsty leaders, but an inevitable consequence of capitalism.
‘Dr Strangelove’ is showing until January 2025 at the Noel Coward theatre, London.
