Dinner with Churchill serves up a war of words

The Lion and the Unicorn
at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore
on Saturday, October 19

Review by MIREK GOSNEY

The Lion and the Unicorn, which pits the Great British Bulldog against the Great Appeaser in a dramatic and moving war of words, ended its UK tour at Arlington Arts on Saturday.

It is October 13, 1939. Winston Churchill and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sit down to a private dinner with their wives – six weeks after war has been declared on Hitler’s Germany.

It is understood this is the only time the four met socially. But no official record of what was said exists.

Director Martin Parsons’ new radio play adapted for stage, based on Robin Hawdon’s book Dinner with Churchill, presents a gripping and intimate glimpse at what conversations may have transpired between the fierce political rivals, both enduring symbols of the early 20th century – for very different reasons.

Churchill has been calling for more rapid rearmament since the early 1930s to counter aggressive Nazi expansionism, while Chamberlain has continued the line of his predecessors of negotiating peace with Hitler, seemingly at any cost.

The creators ask how far nations should go to pacify a threatening dictator, with striking modern relevance. Should the price of peace outweigh the cost of war?

The setting is a radio studio, the actors reading as if for a radio broadcast, with sound effects created live on stage.

The format is confusing and not wholly immersive at first. But the creators, rightly, recognise the dialogue is what’s most important here. The only war here is one of words.

The performances command attention. Tim Hudson captures the loud, outspoken former military commander splendidly. Corrinne Wicks does an equally stellar job playing Clementine Churchill as his doting, patient wife and greatest ally.

By contrast, Brian Capron’s Chamberlain is a tired, stubborn idealist painfully aware his entire legacy is being judged by his failed policy of appeasement – once a popular approach, now seen as a moral failure. But he has his defenders.

Frazer Hines’ Inches – the Churchills’ butler – doubles as the narrator and lends a welcome human commentary to the lively political debate the audience can relate to.

The play does well to avoid the common skewed historical portrayals of both historical figures, with one as a heroic wartime leader and the other a naive fool.

Both men had their own successes and failings. Appeasing Hitler did not work and ultimately led to war. But what would you have done differently, the play asks.

It is certainly apt Churchill should get the last word on stage. He dominated the narrative of the war since publishing his History of The Second World War. Chamberlain, meanwhile, died of cancer in 1940, six months after leaving office.