MANUEL HARLAN
By Clive Davis
The comedian plays all four main characters with aplomb, but this reboot at the Noël Coward theatre in London could have done with more creative flourishes
At the end, as we shuffled out of the auditorium, a wickedly funny Randy Newman song, Political Science, played over the speakers. The mischievous call to set the world free by dropping nukes made an ironic coda to Vera Lynn singing We’ll Meet Again.
It also made you wish the show’s co-adaptors, Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley, had applied a few more creative flourishes to what is, all in all, a stolid remake of the classic Stanley Kubrick Cold War satire.
Don’t get me wrong: this is still a decent star vehicle for Steve Coogan, who outdoes Peter Sellers by taking on four rather than three of the main characters. As well as portraying US president Merkin Muffley, RAF Group Captain Mandrake and the sinister title character, he straps himself into the cockpit of a B-52 bomber as Major Kong, the gung-ho pilot intent on carrying out the order to lay some megatons on the evil Russkies.
It’s a reboot that will appeal most of all to Coogan fans who aren’t familiar with the film, which celebrated its 60th birthday this year. If you do know the original, it’s fun to hear some of the slivers of extra dialogue added by Iannucci and Foley after scrolling through Kubrick’s notebooks and drafts.
All the same, set designer Hildegard Bechtler’s war room is never going to look as imposing as Ken Adam’s James Bond-like screen creation. And if the scale model of the B-52, flying high over a video backdrop, gives the second half of the show an undeniable kick, the rest of the production looks cramped in the confines of the Noël Coward.
Still, Coogan handles all the roles with aplomb. His Mandrake is a bumbler with more than a hint of King Charles, and he brings an aura of playful menace to Strangelove, who, in contrast to the film’s villain, is instantly plagued by robotic tics.
How is the star manoeuvred into his many costume changes? Iannucci and Foley — who is also the director — solve that problem by inserting time-killing ploys and a presidential stand-in. It’s all a little distracting.
While I’ve often complained that video imagery sometimes seems to be pushing flesh-and-blood actors aside in the West End, this is one venture where a little more hi-tech trickery would have been welcome.
Giles Terera gives us a breezy impersonation of General Buck Turgidson, the manic hawk who cheerfully runs the numbers on a nuclear holocaust. No one could ever improve on George C Scott’s original, but if you’ve never seen the movie you’ll still be impressed.
★★★☆☆
Source: Dr Strangelove review — Steve Coogan impresses but it’s oddly stolid
