The rise and fall of Putin’s arch enemy
Patriots (Almeida Theatre, London)
Verdict: Engrossing drama ★★★★I
JUST six months ago Peter Morgan, the writer and creator of The Crown on Netflix, might quite reasonably have feared for his life had he presented a play about Vladimir Putin and his sworn enemy Boris Berezovsky. Now, thanks to the war in ukraine, you can say what you like about Putin and co — they’ve got too many other fish to fry.
Starring as the smooth-topped billionaire Berezovsky, Tom Hollander bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr Burns, Springfield’s power- crazed supremo in The Simpsons on TV.
But this is still a seriously engrossing drama from Morgan, whose last play was Frost/ Nixon in 2008. Instead of American politics, he swims through the shark-infested waters of post-Soviet Russia.
Morgan nails Berezovksy, presenting him as a high-performing hedonist and alpha male juggling business deals, girlfriends, family and Kremlin officials from an analogue phone.
Thence he has Berezovsky surviving a car bomb, manipulating Boris Yeltsin’s daughter Tatiana, striking a multi-million deal with Roman ‘The Kid’ Abramovich (Luke Thallon), and setting up Vladimir Putin (Will Keen) for President, in the belief he will be a biddable flunky.
If Morgan’s dazzling storytelling has a flaw, it is that as happens so often with Putin, he underestimates the Russian premier. He’s written as an under-performing KGB (later FSB) nobody. It would be more powerful to recognise him as the formidably inscrutable antagonist we know him to be.
Morgan is more interested in personality politics, though; and paints an adoring portrait of Berezovsky in line with his own self-image as ‘patriot, cardinal and kingmaker’. All that is a gift to Hollander, who revels in the hubris of a man who fancies himself a good judge of character — but whose tragic life story proves the exact opposite.
Thallon’s bashful Abramovich amuses, too; but I found it hard to believe that Chelsea FC’s former sugar daddy and the ruthless controller of the Sibneft oil empire could be such a bleating lamb.
Rupert Goold directs with characteristic touches of song and dance on Miriam Buether’s stage that looks like a cross between a casino, a pole dancing club and a Kremlin walkway.
As a snapshot of recent Russian history it’s a humdinger. The reality, though, will have been much nastier and much darker.