Three Days in May
Milton Keynes Theatre
Until Saturday, October 8
Three days in May is a terrific radio play.
The fact that Ben Brown's political thriller is currently on a national tour of theatres (and here in MK until the end of the week) before settling into the Trafalgar Studios for a four month London run is proof that a period drama that features our greatest war-time leader faced with making a momentous decision, combined with a well-known TV face (Dep. Supt. Andy Dalziel in 10 series of Dalziel & Pascoe) will 'put bums on seats' no matter how static the action.
In late May 1940 the war cabinet was divided. Conservative Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, believing that forging a weasly deal with Hitler through the 'good offices' of the fascist dictator, Mussolini, was the best way to ensure peace for the country is trying to persuade Prime Minister Winston Churchill round to his way of thinking. But it's a coalition government and the Labour party leader and deputy, Clement Attlee and Arthur Greenwood, won't toe the Conservative party line (sound familiar?). And, for all that he was made to look a fool waving his 'Peace with Honour' appeasement agreement back in September 1938, former PM Neville Chamberlain stands by Winnie who is convinced that they must fight on even when the chips are well and truly down.
"History will be kind to me" said Churchill "for I intend to write it". In Ben Brown's play history is a bit more ambivalent. Quite whether Churchill's resolve really did waver in the days leading up to the Dunkirk evacuation is unclear; what is transparent, however, is the strength with which he steered the country in its darkest hours through his grit, determination and extraordinary powers of oratory.
"There is no other instance in history" said Josef Stalin of that time "when the future of the world depended upon the courage of one man." And it is the thought processes of this one man around whom the action (albeit mostly verbal) revolves.
Fortunately, in Alan Strachan's production, the strong casting and beautifully crafted dialogue make up for a lack of wartime to-ing and fro-ing; you'll find no uniformed girls plotting the course of troop movements on table top maps - or indeed any women in this play at all - but there's a real ensemble feel to the company. Warren Clarke, evidently enjoying a return to the stage after an absence of more than ten years, is a natural as Churchill. If we don't see all facets of Winston, the man, Clarke convinces us that we are in the presence of the greatest mover and shaker of the Second World War throughout these particular three days in May 1940.
Jeremy Clyde, whose first public appearance was as a page boy at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth ll, makes a strikingly chilling Lord Halifax. If King George Vl had had his way, he is the man who would have led us into war - and signed away our liberty just one year later.
Robert Demeger, as disgraced former PM Chamberlain, gives a deeply sensitive performance as a man who, though he would dearly love to creep away to lick his self-inflicted wounds, has to stay on as leader of a party that almost universally despises him. The balance that these three present, while surrounded by equally good supporting performances, raise the play from the level of what could be just a talking shop to a compelling drama.
JUDY RILEY
