★★★★★

“biting, bold and flexes some real theatrical muscle”

Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s taut 90 minute political thriller, ‘In The Print’, delivers a riveting reimagining of the 1986 Wapping dispute, diving into the fight for survival between union leader Brenda Dean and media titan Rupert Murdoch. Cutting straight to the core of this complex moment in time, Khan and Salinsky transform political machinations into gripping theatre.

Mere months after the miners’ strike collapses, thousands of Fleet Street print workers face redundancy as Rupert Murdoch ruthlessly overhauls the industry. Standing with them is steel spined Brenda Dean – the first female leader of a major British union. But Murdoch’s tactics tear the unions apart. Can the workers hold out, or is history doomed to repeat?

Khan and Salinsky, long-time masters of political satire, deliver a smouldering script. The crafting is exquisite, gradually exposing layers of scheming until you’re no longer sure where you stand. The balance of tension and clarity is spot on, drawing you deeper into the mire without losing you. The characters are deliciously complex, revealing flaws and vulnerabilities alike, shot through with wicked wit. Ultimately, the play asks who controls the narrative, crystallised in a moment of theatrical genius when Dean’s voice is abruptly torn away. Slow burn theatre at its finest.

Award winning director Josh Roche proves how much power lies in restraint. With pared back lighting, costume and set, Roche’s direction homes in on the political power play, teasing out the reactions and reversals woven through the script. The tension builds and releases with finesse, culminating in a thrilling climax. The blocking never forgets the audience, and crowd scenes cleverly spill into the auditorium. A touch more fire would make Dean’s eventual glimpse through Murdoch’s eyes a sharper pivot point, but it all moves with an effortless rhythm, perfectly in step with the writing.

Peiyao Wang’s set and costume design reconstructs a vast factory floor, complete with striking ink stains and ghostly traces of the recent past. A smart visual beat sees Murdoch dress down at his most vulnerable, while Dean remains armoured in her pearl clad power suit throughout. Though, interestingly, Dean’s missing her signature blonde curls. Sarah Spencer’s sound and score quietly elevate each scene, conjuring anxious workers or furious strikers with precision, and tightening the tension without drawing attention to itself. Josh Gadsby delivers subtly sculpted lighting, moving us between characters and spaces with effortless clarity.

The cast is consistently compelling. Claudia Jolly nails Dean’s understated power, every gesture and glance landing with fluid naturalism – Jolly is commanding, razor sharp and absolutely not to be messed with. Alan Cox brings a delicious slipperiness to Murdoch, dripping with charm before dropping a killer one liner. We even glimpse the man behind the myth before the fog of war rolls in again – a masterful touch. Alasdair Harvey, Georgia Landers, Jonathan Jaynes and Russell Bentley deliver each of their roles with such clean distinction you forget they’re multi-roling at all.

Khan and Salinsky’s ‘In The Print’ is biting, bold and flexes some real theatrical muscle. Catch this limited run while it’s still up close – like Murdoch, it feels destined for a bigger stage.

THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story”

John Galsworthy’s “The Forsyte Saga” earned him the Nobel Prize for literature. Its epic chronicle of the leading members of an extended upper-middle-class Victorian family has understandably been adapted many times for cinema and television. It is a brave undertaking to adapt the extensive series of novels for the stage, especially for a society that, a century later, will undoubtedly balk at the societal norms embedded in the period. Shaun McKenna and Lin Coghlan have woven together the various strands of the story into a truly magnificent two-part stage play that presents the full meaning and intention of Galsworthy’s original with aesthetic truthfulness. While also allowing it to resonate with a thoroughly modern audience and still be relevant to the way we live our lives now.

First things first: the logistics. The two parts of the play are showing in rep. “Part 1: Irene” and “Part 2: Fleur”. On select days both parts can be seen back-to-back. The programme notes express the hope that ‘each play stands alone, but the experience is far richer if you see both’. More than a clever marketing ploy, the statement is partly true. Yes, they do stand alone (Part 1 more so than Part 2), but it’s not just a far richer experience – it is absolutely essential to see both. For the simple reason that they are both unmissable. What’s more – view them in the correct order. It’s a bit of a marathon coming in collectively at just under five hours, but every moment counts. The shift in the dynamics of the second part involves more investment from the audience, but the whole effect is one of a four act play rather than two independent two-act pieces (you’ll have a couple of hours in between so check out the delicious pizza they serve in the bar).

“The Forsyte Saga” is a male dominated story, yet from the outset this is subverted. The women are very much at its heart here. Pumping that heart is Fleur, played with a subversive passion by Flora Spencer-Longhurst. She introduces, narrates and guides us through the generations – initially the ghost of what is yet to come, but as the events catch up with her, she steps fully into the story. The device is flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story. Scenes overlap, and with little more than a turn of the head we are transported to a different time and location. Anna Yates’ set consists of nothing but a plush red carpet and matching velvet curtains that draw back to reveal the plain brickwork of the playing space. The vivid picture that the performers plant in our imaginations with such conviction ensures that the bare wall becomes a country house, the rolling countryside, a ballroom, a city street, the riverside… well, you get the picture.

Having got to grips with the multiplicity of characters, the main action follows Soames Forsyte (Joseph Millson). His newly acquired wealth and status give him a self-imposed right to want to own everything he sees, including his wife Irene (Fiona Hampton). Millson drags his character deeper and deeper into this delusional obsession with a remarkable performance that ultimately grabs our sympathy by the throat. Irene consistently gains the upper hand, resisting Soames’ grasping intention, and Hampton brilliantly draws us into her world of male entitlement that she refuses to submit to. The domesticity swiftly becomes uncomfortable to watch (remember that marital rape only became illegal in 1992). Yet everybody is a victim in their own way. Andy Rush as the tragic love interest of Irene encapsulates the snowballing effect of action and reaction.

Most of the cast multi-roll, and as the period shifts from the late nineteenth century to the nineteen-twenties in Part 2, the aging of the characters is passed on to other members of the company with a smoothness of transition that puts Doctor Who’s regenerations to shame. At times it is hard to reconcile the mind to the fact that only nine actors are portraying such a vast league of gentlemen and ladies. I would love to highlight each performance just as I would like to lay out each of the plot twists and turns, but in the interests of column-inches, I will instead simply urge you to discover it for yourself.

Except to say, though, that Spencer-Longhurst’s performance is the cornerstone. Barely offstage for five hours, her journey is epically moving. The daughter of Soames, she is a woman ahead of her time, childlike and mischievous but ultimately unable to escape her father’s gene pool. Forbidden love thwarted; she settles for Michael Mont (Jamie Wilkes in fine form as an escapee from P.G. Wodehouse). However, her love still lies with her cousin Jon (Andy Rush – unrecognisable from his other ill-fated characters). Here Spencer-Longhurst pulls out all the stops of her versatility as she crumples into a carbon copy of her father, with a desire to repossess Jon that borders on obsession and selfishness. The past is uncovered and tragically recycled. Roche’s staging again employs remarkable devices to enhance the poignancy, with Alex Musgrave’s lighting steering us towards a strikingly emotive climax. Likewise, Max Pappenheim’s compositions and sound design echo the journey made through time and through the characters’ swooping arcs.

We have travelled from 1886 to 1927 in the course of an afternoon and evening. Two plays, two generations. One company. To describe it as a period drama is a disservice. It crosses all ages. Within the Forsyte dynasty we see how each generation is the product of its time, but also the product of its predecessors. Watching it in 2024 we also get a sense of that indestructible link to our ancestors. We may like to think it is broken, but splinters still pierce the skin of our modern-day vulnerabilities. McKenna and Coghlan have skilfully and powerfully transposed an outdated and convoluted storyline into a modern and intimate theatre, finding both humour in the humourless and pathos in the unforgiving. In the hands of the excellent ensemble cast, it is a must see. You could get by on seeing just ‘Part 1: Irene’, or ‘Part 2: Fleur’. But don’t settle for merely ‘getting by’. Indulge yourself in the whole saga.

Tag Archives: Josh Roche

IN THE PRINT

★★★★★

King’s Head Theatre

IN THE PRINT

King’s Head Theatre

★★★★★

“biting, bold and flexes some real theatrical muscle”

IN THE PRINT

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed on 30th March 2026

by Hannah Bothelton

Photography by Charlie Flint

IN THE PRINT

IN THE PRINT

IN THE PRINT

THE FORSYTE SAGA

★★★★★

Park Theatre

THE FORSYTE SAGA at Park Theatre

★★★★★

“flawlessly executed under Josh Roche’s stylish direction that adds a unique clarity to the sweeping story”