★★★★✰
Under the combined effect of pandemic-era national solidarity and the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the last couple of years have seen an increase in British wartime nostalgia, and The Winston Machine engages with this nostalgia in a more critical way than most. Devised by the Kandinsky theatre company, and currently playing at New Diorama Theatre, the play is ostensibly a quaint multi-generational saga linking the 1940s with the present day, but soon devolves into a much more biting commentary on the fetishisation of war, race relations, and millennial hopelessness.
The Winston Machine begins with a Casablanca-esque, melodramatically performed parting of two lovers (Rachel-Leah Hosker and Nathaniel Christian), revealed to be the grandparents of Becky (also played by Hosker). Becky is a singer—in the mould of the Vera Lynn impersonators prolific on social media in the first lockdown—who is preparing to perform at a local wartime historical reenactment.
Though inspired by her grandparents’ love story, Becky contends with the stifling influences of her small town and of her father and fiancé (both played by Hamish Macdougall). The arrival of Lewis, an old friend and crush (also played by Christian), inspires a new outlook on the legacy of the past; he’s a musician with mixed success, confused about his future.
Importantly for the subject matter, the writing engages with Lewis’ status as a Black man; a gradual tide of microaggressions culminates in the play’s climax, which raises more questions than it answers about how Becky and her community remember Britain’s wartime history, and the direction both Lewis and Becky’s lives are taking.
As with most devised theatre, the production utilises multi-roling creatively, as well as physical theatre within a rather uninspiring space. The fairly ‘obvious’ dual casting decisions are nevertheless imbued with significance. Hosker and Christian’s vibrant chemistry highlights idealism despite a bleak situation, common to the wartime generation and millennials. Macdougall effectively conjures up several different shades of ‘obnoxious white man’—whether boomer dad, pushy boyfriend, or smug Churchill impersonator.
On a more abstract level, the choice of having actors portray a phone ringing or a knock on the door is brilliantly claustrophobic, as a depiction of the competing influences on Becky’s decisions. The frequent dance and spoken word interludes sometimes veer towards the overly literal, such as depicting Becky’s grandmother as a fighter plane controller using paper planes. But, more often, they are a powerful reflection on the play’s themes—Becky’s father literally ‘wrestling’ with his own father’s war hero status particularly sticks in the mind.
Visually, The Winston Machine steers clear of retro clichés. Becky’s dress is vintage-inspired rather than costumey, and the only unambiguously 1940s’ costume piece is her grandfather’s RAF jacket, whose presence in the house functions almost as a Chekhov’s gun. This understated approach is highly appropriate to the play’s ethos, which is concerned with highlighting the hollowness and hypocrisy of rose-tinted views of wartime aesthetics.
In The Winston Machine, as in reality, remembering the war is for reactionary baby-boomers rather than those who lived through it. While Becky’s dad bemoans Harry and Meghan and ‘woke’ universities as the downfall of a great nation, his veteran father struggles with PTSD and a strained relationship with his son.
Through a compelling intergenerational premise and widely familiar character archetypes, The Winston Machine creates a crucial and timely portrayal of Britain’s changing relationships with its past.
Words by Clementine Scott
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