MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Dr Strangelove and the Seven Dwarves of Armageddon
MATTHEW ALFORD questions the establishment-pleasing politics that underlie so-called ‘political satire’
SATIRE DE-FANGED: (L) Peter Sellars in Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove (1964); (R) Steve Coogan in Sean Foley and Armando Ianucci's Dr Strangelove (2024)
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
IS ARMANDO IANNUCCI a national treasure? He should be. But for entertainment — not political satire.
In a West End stage adaptation of Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley’s Dr Strangelove, an insane US commander orders a nuclear strike on Russia. Both sides flounder to prevent apocalypse.
The original film was Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, skewering Cold War archetypes from subservient RAF pilot to drunk Russian premier. Iannucci’s adaptation, also set in the ‘60s, has the Russian dictator modelled on Vladimir Putin, labelled in a punchline as “cold-blooded, neurotic — and short!”
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MATTHEW ALFORD considers the principal four reasons there wasn’t a nuclear exchange this year, despite the Ukraine war, the carnage in the Middle East, the provocations over Taiwan — and his best predictions
No matter how black our satire, the government goes blacker – as shown in the WikiLeaks founders’ case, says MATTHEW ALFORD
MATTHEW ALFORD asks how innocent the arts and the celebrities who front them up really are
As a civilisation we are in thrall to and infantilised by our own righteousness, while ignoring the corporate interests that make war miserably predictable, writes MATTHEW ALFORD
