Fresh from his terrific Tom Lehrer comedy, Francis Beckett returns to the same venue with this hit and miss history, that could do with its very own purge.
Vodka with Stalin is set in the brutal period of Russian history dominated by totalitarian leader Josef Stalin and tells the real-life story of a couple of idealistic young Brits who became caught up in the purges of the 1930s.
The first half is a bit like an early Soviet tractor – just about serviceable but rather clunky.
In the early 1900s Harry Pollitt (a solid, northern, working-class David Malcolm) is on his soap box, working London meetings with faux heckler Rose Cohen (a solid, East-end Jewish working-class Miranda Colmans).
The audience is treated to some awkward and dramatically unsubtle dialogue where each tries to trump the other with the grimness and austerity of their backstories.
There is clearly affection between them, but Beckett does little to develop the theme.
In 1920, the dashing Max Petrovsky (nicely played by floppy-haired Luke McArthur) recruits Rose for some dangerous undercover work: she is a natural and eventually she and Max marry, move to Moscow and have a child.
Then the purges start, and an everyday story of revolutionary folk unfolds, as a harsh and honest examination of how personal relations must take second place to anything that furthers the socialist cause.
The sense of Stalin’s grotesque and hard-drinking bonhomie is well drawn by the sinister Jonathan Hansler. The helplessness of all those affected is very unsettling. Harry, who by the 1930s is a Communist leader and a drinking pal of Uncle Joe, tries to help when both Rose and Max are arrested, but his thoughts and actions are dominated by the greater cause.
The final fifteen minutes of Pollitt’s reflection on a failed career is excellent theatre, but left this reviewer reflecting on whether Vodka with Stalin needed a purge of some of the flimsy early dialogue.
Vodka With Stalin runs Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate until October 27.
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