When Winston Went To War With The Wireless – Donmar Warehouse, London

Writer: Jack Thorne

Director: Katy Rudd

As industrial action by nurses, junior doctors, teachers and railway workers continues, it is a good idea to revisit the General Strike of 1926. However, rather than examining the plight of the striking workers, writer Jack Thorne’s new play shows how the BBC benefitted when the newspaper workers downed tools. When Winston Went To War With The Wireless demonstrates that the BBC’s famous impartiality may have come at a price.

Of course, some would say that the BBC has never been impartial and that its attempts to remain neutral often backfire spectacularly. Just look at how Gary Lineker’s recent suspension made it seem as if the Beeb was supporting the Government’s stance on immigration. The Donmar’s new production reminds us that the Government has its fingerprints all over the iconic institution. Thorne reduces this battle of control over the airwaves to a stand-off between Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the time, and John Reith, the managing director of the BBC.

The play begins with Reith asking the Government if the BBC can have more regular news bulletins rather than the single 7pm broadcast it was previously permitted. The print media had been worried that no one would buy their papers if the news were available for free on the radio. With the newspapers now shut down Reith seizes his chance to promote the BBC. However, Churchill has his own ideas. He becomes editor of the Government paper The British Gazette which bends the truth in Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin’s favour. Churchill also thinks that the BBC could become another mouthpiece for the Tory Party’s policies.

Reith is also told that he should give no airtime to the Liberal and Labour Parties. He resists, but in Stephen Campbell Moore’s portrayal, we also see Reith a little thrilled by having Government ministers visit his office. For Reith, the General Strike is an opportunity for the BBC to flex its muscles and become more than simple entertainment. In its early days, the BBC’s output seemed little more than an extension of the music hall.

In other hands, this power struggle between two men could be too talky, rather like a radio drama itself, but Thorne has a light touch, and his play is as much a celebration of early radio as an exploration of power dynamics. Actors become studio engineers, making their own sound effects for most of the play. And we see snippets of early stars and comedy sketches that already by 1926 two million people were listening to on their wirelesses.

These comic interludes give space for the main drama and the two main actors give stellar performances particularly Moore as Reith. He believes that his position at the BBC is a calling from God, but his certainty is undermined by a sense of wrongdoing. In some cleverly crafted flashbacks, we see Reith, fresh out of the trenches, in love with another man. But these days now haunt him, and we see Reith battling his inner demons as well as the instructions coming from Churchill. Moore stammers and hesitates, doing everything that an actor shouldn’t, but his Reith feels real, a man for his times, caught between truth and pragmatism.

Adrian Scarborough’s performance as Churchill is more familiar. His Churchill is a soused bully, competing like a schoolboy in the playground. You half-expect him to bring out of his pocket a conker on a string. But Scarborough still manages to show the Chancellor’s darker challenge for power and, in a way, this Churchill isn’t a thousand miles away from Boris Johnson who perhaps also uses his bonhomie to disguise a keener intent.

It’s not quite a duel, however, as Stanley Baldwin increasingly becomes part of the action. In a splendid gender-blind casting Haydn Gwynne, last seen in the West End judging cakes in The Great British Bake Off Musical, plays a laid-back Baldwin, who seems content to hide behind the parapets. Gwynne is a natural in the part, and her scenes with Churchill are just as electric as the scenes between Churchill and Reith.

The two politicians bond somewhat over a nickname they confer on Reith. They call him Wuthering Heights. It’s a funny allusion to Reith’s dramatic earnestness and when the BBC’s Managing Director, sporting a scar on his cheek from the trenches, is on his knees praying to God for guidance there is something Gothic about When Winston Went To War With The Wireless. Thorne’s play confirms that there is something dark in the BBC’s attic after all.

Runs until 29 July 2023