By Sarah Mills
LONDON (Reuters) – Sixty years after director Stanley Kubrick’s movie “Dr. Strangelove” was released, a stage version of the black comedy has opened in London’s West End starring Oscar-nominated and BAFTA award-winning actor Steve Coogan. Like actor Peters Sellers in the original version of the Cold War farce, Coogan takes on several roles, including U.S. President Merkin Muffley and German scientific advisor Dr. Strangelove.
“It’s demanding physically, but it is rewarding to do. And audiences, if they laugh and they enjoy it, then, that’s all you can ask for,” he said after the show on Tuesday.
“Dr. Strangelove” opens with U.S. General Ripper giving orders to attack the then Soviet Union.
The U.S President sets about trying to stop the bogus mission and tensions escalate after the information emerges that a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union would trigger the Soviet Doomsday Machine – a secret device set to self-detonate and kill all life on the planet.
British writer Armando Iannucci, whose many awards include two Emmys for his work on “Veep”, adapted “Dr. Strangelove” with Sean Foley, who directs the stage version.
“We’ve absolutely rigorously tried to stick to the tone of the film and obviously the plot, although we messed about a little bit with the plot,” Foley said
The aim is to appeal to audiences who loved the film as well as those who have never seen it. The continued relevance of the plot is unlikely to be lost on either.
“It’s about America and Russia facing a nuclear conflict, all started by one rogue general, and then a process of bureaucracy and procedures that become unstoppable,” Iannucci said.
Also present at Tuesday’s performance was Christiane Kubrick, widow of Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999, as well as his stepdaughter Katharina, who said: “The topic is more appropriate and more important than ever.”
“Dr. Strangelove” plays at the Noel Coward Theatre in London until January 2025 before a run at Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy Theatre.
(Editing by Barbara Lewis)
