‘Good, meaty entertainment’ – When Winston Went to War with the Wireless

Britain’s General Strike in 1926 lasted nine days.

As the coolly detached prime minister Stanley Baldwin held firm, his chancellor and ‘enforcer’ Winston Churchill had to persuade John Reith of the newly formed British Broadcasting Company to toe the government line and not to give the oxygen of publicity to the unions.

Reith wanted broadcasting to remain impartial as the only remaining news outlet was the government produced British Gazette.

The battle of wills is carried out largely in the BBC studio where technicians rattle, clink and gurgle various domestic items to create sound effects.

It’s a clever theatrical device, framing a serious debate on the pressures that the government can put on media institutions through ideological argument and outright threats.

Like a latter day Harley Granville Barker, playwright Jack Thorne allows the debate plenty of air without descending to diatribe and is even-handed in his treatment of Churchill (Adrian Scarborough) whose character is forged by wartime experiences and Reith (Stephen Campbell-Moore) whose own Christian principles are compromised by his secretive Wildean lifestyle.

Good, meaty entertainment beautifully played by all, particularly Ravin J Ganatra as the Archbishop of Canterbury (“There is no ‘greater good’. There is only ‘good’”) and Laura Rogers as Clemmie, Churchill’s spunky wife.

The casting of Haydn Gwynne as Baldwin is a mischievous allusion to her role as a prime minister closer to her own gender.

When Winston Went to War with the Wireless, Donmar Theatre until July 29. Tickets: 020 3282 3808