If Reithian principles represent the ideal of truth-telling and impartiality in public service broadcasting today, Jack Thorne’s play looks back at the man who established them at a delicate moment in the history of the BBC, and dramatises his inner tussle with truth.
We find John Reith at the helm of the British Broadcasting Company – not yet a corporation but on its way to becoming so. That outcome is threatened in 1926, during the general strike, which extends the reach of Reith’s wireless service in the absence of newspapers (the presses went on strike too). It brings him into conflict with Stanley Baldwin’s government which seeks to co-opt the service as a state broadcaster.
Reith strikes a win by featuring trade union views but loses to the government’s edict not to air a conciliatory speech by the archbishop of Canterbury. The BBC’s future as a corporation stands in the balance if he does not bend to their will.
The story comes in fast, evocative scenes with dialogue delivering lots of information, entertainingly, but not with enough probing.
Stephen Campbell Moore’s Reith is God-fearing, self-important, and spends much of his time on his knees praying. He is neither hero nor villain, not problematic in itself, but we do not feel we know him by the end. Ultimately, we are not sure what the play is saying: that impartiality is impossible to achieve? That men with great ideals can never live up to them? That there is no such thing as the greater good, only the good, as the archbishop quizzically says? While the play’s issues resonate today – from the way the Israel-Palestine conflict is reported to the Gary Lineker controversy – it never stops seeming like a period piece.
In a subplot, we see how Reith is quietly tormented by the memory of his homosexual lover, Charlie (Luke Newberry). There is connective tissue between Reith’s central battle for truth and his marriage to Muriel (Mariam Haque), built on lies. But the nature of the lie is entirely different and the subplot threatens to take over: Muriel is sketchily drawn but Reith’s flashbacks to Charlie bring the play alive and we want more of their story.
Haydn Gwynne is especially charming as Baldwin and Adrian Scarborough is, as always, engaging as Winston Churchill, then chancellor of the exchequer, who takes charge of Baldwin’s battle. This is not, as the title suggests, a play about Churchill who is a flat character, petulant with overweaning ambition, never played entirely seriously, it seems.
Under the direction of Katy Rudd, the stagecraft dazzles, most ingeniously through Ben and Max Ringham’s foley effects. Items such as a typewriter, a fish bowl and a teapot stand exposed at the back of the stage. Actors use them to create noises, often playfully, at a mic and this is as central to the drama as the story itself.
Sound is married to visuals in arresting ways too on Laura Hopkins’ clever set and flashes of light (design by Howard Hudson with video projection by Andrzej Goulding) reveal the strike itself. It is this delight in and celebration of sound, so apt for a play about the power of radio, that makes the play worth seeing.
At the Donmar Warehouse, London, until 29 July
