MICHAL BONCZA recommends a minimalist installation that prompts intriguing connotations
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Trivial pursuit
A play on the Litvinenko poisoning entertains but offers little fresh insight, says MARY CONWAY
Comic interlude: Tom Brooke, MyAnna Buring and Amanda Hadingue in A Very Expensive Poison
[Marc Brenner]
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A Very Expensive Poison
Old Vic, London
AS DRAMA, the poisoning of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko by the radioactive substance polonium-210 in 2006 is bound to draw the crowds.
The case was disturbing, not just because of the pain and terror for the individual but because it exposed a destabilising brand of international politics that impacts on all.
Writer Lucy Prebble, as in her earlier play Enron, again tackles a theme of huge public fascination and enormous complexity and the clarity of the story owes much of its detail to Luke Harding who wrote a book on the affair.
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Although this production was in rehearsal before the playwright’s death, it allows us to pay homage to his life, suggests MARY CONWAY