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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]

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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