Winston on the Run

“You can’t shoot me, I’m a journalist, not a soldier,” pleads a young Winston Churchill, under duress in war-torn South Africa. “And, dammit, I’m the son of a lord!”

It’s a very different take on Churchill than the high-profile version that recently made headlines: Timothy Spall rising from the top of Big Ben during the Olympics closing ceremony, triumphantly reciting lines from The Tempest. This younger Winston is almost the antithesis; grubby rather than grand, and lacking any identifiable hint of the gruff, gravitas-laden leader to come. Instead he’s fame-hungry, spoiled and even slightly whiny, not traits the great man is often associated with. 

Winston on the Run recounts his 1899 journey to the Boer War, initially as a newspaper correspondent, an experience that eventually propelled the former soldier and failed MP to wider national prominence. It’s a status he craved, according to Freddie Machin, who co-wrote and stars in this admirable play.

In prouder moments Machin has a promising whiff of Michael Sheen, but in the more manic—with that mop of red hair, arched eyebrows and sneering countenance—he bears a curious resemblance to Rik Mayall in Drop Dead Fred. Which, again, is hard to equate with the cigar-chomping Hitchcockian icon.

However accurate it may be, Machin’s portrayal is hugely watchable. Charismatic and energetic, he lurches across the cramped, sweaty stage, dodging gunfire, attacking rodents and scattering a slops bucket that had earlier shown us, again, the unglamorous nature of Winston’s Boer War experience.   

South Africa was a crucial but often neglected factor in Churchill’s eventual rise to glory. Winston on the Run charts that progression in bold, unflattering fashion.