Stanley Kubrick’s pitch-black comedy about nuclear armageddon was once called ‘sick’. Iannucci explains why – in the age of Trump, Putin and Musk – this madcap story is as relevant as ever
‘Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!” In fact, it is a rehearsal studio on an autumn afternoon, but let’s not quibble. This is where Steve Coogan and the rest of the cast are running through a new stage version of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire Dr Strangelove. Watching over them is their director Sean Foley and his co-adapter, Armando Iannucci, who together resemble a tall, gruff bricklayer and his short, smiley mate.
The actors pace around in front of an as yet unpainted wooden set, which revolves to reveal the office of General Ripper, played on screen by the peremptory Sterling Hayden and here by John Hopkins. As the scene unfolds, Ripper barks down the phone at the stiff-upper-lipped Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, played by Coogan, who is feebly clutching a computer printout in front of his face….