“A fascinating, funny and shockingly relevant historical snapshot – audiences can learn a lot from ‘When Winston Went To War With The Wireless,’ which balances warm affection and bitter critique of Britain during the inter-war years.”
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“Thorne’s play is an unabashed celebration of the BBC and the haunted, brittle man who built it. Undoubtedly, the 1926 general strike was the making of the nascent corporation – but was it also its finest hour? It’s a question that doesn’t trouble ‘When Winston...’ – but perhaps it should trouble us.”
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“...Thorne triumphantly uses real history to create a compelling drama that is both amusing, touching and revealing.”
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“If Thorne’s script has a flaw, it’s that most of the characters remain cheerfully two-dimensional.”
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“Katy Rudd’s beautifully crafted production utilises radio-style foley effects throughout...Overall, however, there is too much informing for a drama (and actually, with so much narration and audio work, it might be better suited to radio). But it’s still a potent love letter to the BBC, in all its messy glory.”
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“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.”
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“Unfortunately, Thorne also saddles Archer with some clumsy narrating duties...All his characters here, in fact, are broad and flat, and although there are flashes of strobe-lit police violence and confrontation with strikers, the texture of interwar life is not pungent enough. Still, it is a piece full of interest; the sort of play, in fact, that would sound at home on Radio 4.”
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“The strength of the play, and perhaps its most depressing side, is that it shows how some things never change in this country.”
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