Tom Hollander’s performance has critics swooning over Patriots at the Noël Coward Theatre.
The acclaimed actor plays Boris Berezovsky — a man who, according to our reviewer Nick Curtis, was an “oligarch who wanted to save Russia through capitalism, at considerable personal profit”.
Hollander stars opposite Will Keen as Vladimir Putin, with the two men in discussion as to what direction Russia should take throughout the 1990s.
Patriots will be at the Noël Coward until August 19, having made the step up to the West End from the Almeida theatre in Islington.
But what is Patriots about and is this a true story of recent Russian history?
What happens in Patriots?
Rupert Goold’s production begins in 1991, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Communism and the destruction of the Berlin Wall.
In the days of Boris Yeltsin’s regime, maths prodigy Boris Berezovsky is able to get rich through the selloff of Russian assets. He considers himself a patriot and, with the help of Roman Abramovich, amongst others, he is able to help his friend Vladimir Putin ascend to the Kremlin.
However, the Putin dream gradually turns into a nightmare as the friend becomes a foe around the time the politician became an autocrat. Or so we are led to believe.
Who was Tom Hollander’s character Boris Berezovsky in real life?
Born in 1946 in Moscow, Mr Berezovsky had a relatively unnoteworthy career until the 1990s, when the plutocrat did indeed make a £2 billion fortune through business deals as the Russian state was privatised.
He invested in car manufacturing and set up the All-Russia Automobile Alliance. Alongside this, he took over television channels and assisted Mr Abramovich in buying an oil company. He was also a politician — which will be explored below.
All of his success was achieved despite an attempt on his life in the form of a car bombing.
Mr Berezovsky was married twice and had a third partner at the time of his death. He was 67 when he died in 2013.
What was Boris Berezovsky’s relationship with Vladimir Putin?
What makes the play interesting is the contrasting fortunes of both men and how they play a part in each other’s fortunes.
Mr Berezovsky was a supporter of 1990s Russian premier Boris Yeltsin, and helped to finance and organise the president’s re-election campaign in 1996.
In the subsequent years, he established a tight-knit circle of advisors around Mr Yeltsin, called The Family, with the aim of finding a suitable successor who was considered more electable than their heir-in-theory, Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
Mr Putin was deputy mayor of St Petersburg when he called on Mr Berezovsky for help in getting to the Kremlin. And, in only a few years, the influence of The Family was key in helping deliver Mr Putin to the brink — with the current Russian president taking over from Mr Yeltsin in 2000.
Mr Berezovsky was himself elected to the Duma, the Russian assembly, on the back of a show of support for Mr Putin. However, in 2000, he resigned and turned against Mr Putin, who in turn became an enemy. Mr Berezovsky left Russia towards the end of 2000.
He began to sell off his Russian assets and was granted political asylum in the UK, where he lived in Berkshire, although never far from scrutiny or legal action.
How did Boris Berezovsky die?
A coroner recorded an open verdict on the death of Mr Berezovsky after he died in 2013.
He was found hanging by a scarf in the bathroom of his ex-wife’s home in Ascot. But, while his postmortem was said to not reveal any signs of foul play, it was also not ruled that he had killed himself.
