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| Trafalgar Studios 1 Whitehall, SW1A 2DY |
Three Days In May | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Map ©Silvermaze Ltd 2008 |
 Photo ©Tony Reading 2008 |
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Three Days In May, a new play starring Warren Clarke as Winston
Churchill has opened in London. A gripping forensic on what sort of a
man Churchill was. I was born in 1940 and I've had enough. Read on.
The Churchill that stands in the hall of the Goring hotel with a fresh
rose in the bronze lapel is rather different from the Churchill that
Warren Clarke plays. However he has captured something of the man in
"his potent mixture of political cunning and great-heartedness". He
captures also the eloquence - mumble though he might - "and portrays his
character’s single-minded sense of purpose with only the slightest tinge
of hubris"
The Mail on the other hand uses different adjectives:
"[Warren's] splendid portrayal of Churchill hints at a degree of inner
uncertainty while capturing the essence of the man — a mix of
intellectual clarity and iron-willed determination" THE STORYIt's 1940 - the year of the Dragon and a rather important moment for Britain when we were said to be looking at being thoroughly whooped by Hitler who had taken Belgium with France about to surrender (yeah right) and anybody British was heading to Dunkirk. America still pussyfooting and Italy turning coat to Germany...... France sends its PM to London to urge Churchill to secure peace for them both with Hitler - hopefully through the then starry-eyed Mussolini -- and furthermore that if Britain gave up Malta and Suez to Germany he could just about be satisfied and leave France alone and so it's win win all round give or take a job or two. The conjecture is whether Churchill wavered ot not. They looked at his wavery secretary's diaries (Jock Colville) and wondered. They called it the dark night of the soul which is very modern of them. As I mentioned - I was born in 1940 - YOU go and don't forget to book first :-) Cast
Creative
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Whatever kind of political rapscallion Churchill may have been before he
certainly did and said what he could to promote courage. One gets the
feeling that his plans and possibilities were like a basket of many
intertwined snakes - can't tell where one ends and the other begins. He
was certainly outrageous and folk have backed off some of the 'snakes'
where the context was too narrow to know what was really going on....all
seemed so nasty.