When Winston Went to War with the Wireless – Donmar Warehouse
Just like the BBC, which is the subject of this new play by Jack Thorne, both inform and entertain. It is set in the early days of the general strike in 1926 when the British Broadcasting Company, as it was then known, was in its formative days under the leadership of the redoubtable John Reith. Since the strike led to the temporary closure of all the print media, this provided a golden opportunity for the new broadcaster to become a premier news channel. This brought it into conflict with the government's own alternative press media, the British Gazette, overseen by Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Reith, played by Stephen Campbell Moore, is the central character of the play. He struggles both with trying to position the new company as an impartial media ...