MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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Dr Strangelove and the Seven Dwarves of Armageddon
MATTHEW ALFORD questions the establishment-pleasing politics that underlie so-called ‘political satire’
SATIRE DE-FANGED: (L) Peter Sellars in Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove (1964); (R) Steve Coogan in Sean Foley and Armando Ianucci's Dr Strangelove (2024)
[Manuel Harlan]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
IS ARMANDO IANNUCCI a national treasure? He should be. But for entertainment — not political satire.
In a West End stage adaptation of Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley’s Dr Strangelove, an insane US commander orders a nuclear strike on Russia. Both sides flounder to prevent apocalypse.
The original film was Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, skewering Cold War archetypes from subservient RAF pilot to drunk Russian premier. Iannucci’s adaptation, also set in the ‘60s, has the Russian dictator modelled on Vladimir Putin, labelled in a punchline as “cold-blooded, neurotic — and short!”
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by Alistair Findlay
![SHAMELESS DISPLAY OF COERCION: Previously unreleased photos of Guantanamo captives, 2002, brought to Guantanamo Bay from Afghanistan by way of Incirlik, Turkey. [Pic: Staff Sergeant Jeremy Lock/CC]](https://msd11.gn.apc.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-11/cia%20web2.jpg.webp?itok=o_Dyxu_T)
GUILLERMO THOMAS enjoys a survey of the current state of the CIA (aka Langley) from an expert and insider of sorts
Washington plays innocent bystander while pouring weapons and intelligence into Ukraine, just as it enables the Gaza genocide — but every US escalation leaves Ukraine weaker than the neutrality deal rejected in 2022, argue MEDEA BENJAMIN and NICOLAS JS DAVIES