Churchill

Why take on one formidable historical figure when you can play two? Pip Utton has created quite a meaty challenge for himself at the Fringe this year by staging two monologues: a revival of last year’s Adolf, and his new play about Hitler’s nemesis, British WW2 Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

The conceit for the latter is this: a statue of Churchill in Parliament Square, London, has become flesh and blood for one night. With a creak and a groan, Churchill dismounts his plinth to relate his life story to the audience. We hear of his aristocratic background, his childhood spent playing toy soldiers with his brother and suffering the cane at boarding school, his time in the army following Sandhurst, and his political triumphs and perceived failures in both world wars.

The refurbished Assembly Rooms, with all their stately grandeur, lend themselves well to a recreation of Churchill’s office, where the portly figure swigs whiskey, smokes his trademark Cuban cigars and relates his story directly to an acknowledged audience (he even recruits an audience member to help him down from the plinth).

Utton is a charismatic stage presence and captures Churchill’s familiar physicality well, his natural jowls accompanied by the tentative shuffle of an ageing overweight man. And it’s a nicely written piece, Churchill’s thoughts on women, war, alcohol and “the black dog”—depression—expressing both the confident caricature we know and the human complexities that simmer underneath.

But there’s nothing remarkable here. This is safe, solid theatre, well presented by a consummate professional for an audience which desires no surprises.