“It’s improbable but not impossible that we could someday have a psychopathic president… You could say that such a man would be detected and restrained by his aides – but with the powers of the presidency what they are today, who really knows?” Thus spoke Stanley Kubrick in an interview about his 1964 film, widely considered today to be one of the masterpieces of 20th-century cinema.
With the tumultuous American presidential election only days away, Kubrick’s sombre reflection, and the theme of his fine film, echo ever more gravely. What, in short, if some unrestrained nutter got hold of the nuclear codes?
Sean Foley, alas, is no Stanley Kubrick. This director has a dispiriting habit of reducing everything he touches to silliness, which he repeats once again here in an adaptation co-written with Armando Iannucci. Whereas Kubrick has pitch-black comedy intercutting a mood of gravitas, Foley unwisely has occasional serious moments raising their heads above cheap jokes, meaning that those unfamiliar with the film will quite simply wonder what all the fuss is about.
If only the tone of the production were more nuanced, Steve Coogan’s considerable industry would pay greater dividends. He gives a high-octane quick-change performance in four roles, one more even than Peter Sellers managed in the film. It is to Coogan’s immense credit that I didn’t realise it was him playing Major TJ Kong, pilot of the rogue nuclear weapons-bearing plane about to attack Russia, until I studied the programme. Elsewhere, he’s decent British RAF Captain Mandrake, American president Merkin Muffley and, of course, the wheelchair-using title character with alien hand syndrome. To say that Coogan works hard is a mighty understatement.
Kubrick’s theme is the absurdity of the Cold War arms race, with its mad theory of Mutually Assured Destruction. Dr Strangelove, a sinister German weapons scientist working for the Americans, reminds us that although the Nazis were defeated, many of their personnel remain at large in a post-Second World War world. When parody bellicose US General Ripper (John Hopkins) goes bonkers and decides to launch a “pre-taliatory” strike on Russia, a crisis meeting convenes in the US War Room, with its “big board” of arrows and squiggles tracking progress and targets. Russian ambassador Bakov (Tony Jayawardena) joins them, although he’s more concerned about his dinner than anything else.
As Foley will not trust us to understand Kubrick’s velvet subtlety, there is much laborious underlining of points, as well as the crowbarring in of contemporary references, resulting too often in daft spoof that undercuts Coogan’s achievements.
An ingenious piece of design from Hildegard Bechtler has a life-size model of the plane’s cockpit flanked by video screens angled to a point behind it, showing the rest of the aircraft and sky. That flight might herald the end of the world as we know it, but it is difficult to care very much.
To 25 January, Noel Coward Theatre (drstrangelove.com)