THE GANG OF THREE

King’s Head Theatre

★★★★

“At the centre of director Kirsty Patrick Ward’s bitchy and erudite psychodrama are three rounded and convincing performances”

The occasional soundtrack behind this formidable political drama tells of a nation undergoing change, from the raucous rock of the early ’70s to the chaotic onslaught of punk and New Wave as the ’80s approach.

But inside Libby Watson’s evocative set – all dusty books, leather sofas, and drinks trolleys – the same argument goes round and round.

Three giants of the Labour movement – Tony Crosland, Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey – all pals from war-time Oxford – cannot fathom how to seize the leadership of their party and the country.

It’s right there for the taking, if only they can agree on who should carry the flame.

With such a prize will come influence for generations. Think: no Margaret Thatcher; the leftist tendency put to the sword; no third party politics.

But these towering figures are also – and perhaps more so – towering egos and none will relinquish their claim.

In the end, the prize is lost.

In writers Robert Khan and Tom Salinksky’s reckoning, the what-ifs fly like shrapnel through the years.

That is not to suggest these three upholstered middle-aged men were on the outside. No, they were close to power, becoming the embodiment of the privileged elite. Roy Jenkins, the father of the permissive ’60s, Denis Healey, arguably the last truly charismatic chancellor, and – brightest of them all – Tony Crosland and his seminal thinking on the future of socialism.

And yet, the prize eluded them and was granted to lesser men, in their eyes. They marvel, at one point, how the hard left stole the party after the 1979 election defeat simply because Tony Benn and Michael Foot did a deal that avoided splitting the vote, a feat the magnificent minds of The Gang of Three simply couldn’t pull off. For years.

As Healey says at one point, “We are all children wearing our fathers’ clothes, hoping no-one will notice.”

They know their fate is to sink together, to cancel each other out, but still they cling to old disputes while the country moves on.

At the centre of director Kirsty Patrick Ward’s bitchy and erudite psychodrama are three rounded and convincing performances, not impressions but capturing the spirit of those mighty figures.

Alan Cox is Crosland, all camp teasing and frivolity; booming Colin Tierney captures the avuncular yet menacing manoeuvrings of Denis Healey; while Hywel Morgan has the hunched-up physicality (and the mispronounced Rs) of the uptight, humourless Roy Jenkins, so desperate to run a party, he eventually founded his own.

In the brisk, knowing script we jump from April 1972, just as Jenkins throws his toys out of the pram and resigns the deputy leadership, to the mournful 1980 post-mortem, Thatcher in power for a generation and Jenkins still plotting to claim the liberal throne.

By then Crosland is dead at 58, his stellar potential left unfulfilled.

There is an unfortunate flashback to 1940, suggesting a homosexual fling between Jenkins and Crosland, but beyond that, the play never puts a foot wrong. The script is dense with argument about the difficult politics of the left but all is handled with a deft and playful touch.

To those who were there, it is an exciting tribute to great men of charisma in an age of titans – and to those too young to remember, it serves as a reminder that nothing – least of all fratricide – is new in politics.

The Gang of Three is an accomplished and satisfying work, with polished performances, a witty script, endless gins and a cascade of awkward truths that are still relevant today.

THE GANG OF THREE

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 6th May 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

(THIS IS NOT A) HAPPY ROOM | ★★★ | March 2025

FIREBIRD | ★★★★ | January 2025

LOOKING FOR GIANTS | ★★★ | January 2025

LADY MONTAGU UNVEILED | ★★★ | December 2024

HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR MOTHER | ★★★ | October 2024

TWO COME HOME | ★★★★★ | August 2024

THE PINK LIST | ★★★★ | August 2024

ENG-ER-LAND | ★★★ | July 2024

DIVA: LIVE FROM HELL! | ★★★★ | June 2024

BEATS | ★★★ | April 2024

THE GANG OF THREE

★★★★

“the dialogue is whip smart – intelligently written and delivered in a natural manner that draws plenty of unexpected laughs”

Hampstead Theatre’s ambitious revival of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll follows the intersecting lives of Jan and Max, a Czech PhD student at Cambridge and his Marxist professor. Starting in 1968 with the Prague Spring and closing just after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, it covers vast ground, temporally and thematically, but primarily examines the socio-political challenges of Czechoslovakia as a satellite state of the Soviet Union through Jan and Max’s diverging perspectives. It’s pretty cerebral, not least because the academic discussions on Marxism are often only given respite by academic discussions on Sappho, but there is balance to be had with emotive love stories interwoven throughout.

There’s a lot to unpack, whether Czech independence is familiar to you or not. The script is densely filled with characters, storylines and dialogue covered at such a cantering pace it can be difficult to keep up. Jumps forward in time require heavy exposition to make sense of when and where we are. But the dialogue is whip smart – intelligently written and delivered in a natural manner that draws plenty of unexpected laughs.

Stoppard describes this play as a love story primarily between Jan and Rock and Roll music. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Jan is sweetly enamoured by the Velvet Underground and Nico, Pink Floyd, and the Rolling Stones – taking just a suitcase of records with him back from Cambridge to Prague in ‘68. Director Nina Raine brings this to life in the staging, blasting the familiar tunes as the scenes change and using Brenock O’Connor as an ethereal Syd Barrett to hop across the stage like the spirit of rock and roll.

“a timely revival from one of British theatre’s greatest playwrights”

It’s Jan’s singular fixation with Czech rockers Plastic People of the Universe that drive him from youthful idealism towards dissidence for the ruling regime. Almost every scene at times is peppered with ‘plastic people’. His eventual criticism of the communist regime puts him at odds with the fearsome Max. Nathaniel Parker’s Max feels intensely unlikable – an old man stuck in his ways, unbudgeable in his convictions. Czech independence from soviet influence feels viscerally modern at the current moment with Ukraine at war for the right to self determination. Max’s dogmatic insistence in the preeminence of communism has added resonance now.

These intellectual battles are expertly balanced against emotional ones. Nancy Carroll as Eleanor, gives an indelibly powerful performance as Max’s equally accomplished wife whose specialism in sapphic poetry is at odds with the rationalism of her partner. When she talks of Sappho writing of an un-mechanical man you can’t help but think she is imagining the very opposite of her husband. It’s clever therefore that in Act II Carroll plays Esme, Eleanor and Max’s daughter, who harbours a lifelong attraction to the more emotional Jan.

Set in traverse, it is never noticeable that the cast are playing to the audience on both sides. The large stage is fulsomely decked out by Anna Reid as the grand interior of a Cambridge college suitable for a professor of rank just as well as a poky Prague flat.

Rock ’n’ Roll is a timely revival from one of British theatre’s greatest playwrights. Whether you’re a Syd Barrett super fan or Marxist intellectual there will be plenty to mull over long after the final tableau.

THE GANG OF THREE

King’s Head Theatre

★★★★

“At the centre of director Kirsty Patrick Ward’s bitchy and erudite psychodrama are three rounded and convincing performances”

THE GANG OF THREE

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 6th May 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE GANG OF THREE

THE GANG OF THREE

THE GANG OF THREE

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“the dialogue is whip smart – intelligently written and delivered in a natural manner that draws plenty of unexpected laughs”

“a timely revival from one of British theatre’s greatest playwrights”

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL at Hampstead Theatre

Reviewed on 12th December 2023

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Manuel Harlan

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Rock ‘n’ Roll

Rock ‘n’ Roll