Armando Iannucci adapts Dr Strangelove for the stage
- Stanley Kubrick's 1964 film Dr Strangelove is being brought to the stage by Armando Iannucci and Sean Foley
- Opening in the West End in the autumn of 2024, the nuclear crisis satire has never been adapted before
- Iannucci says: "It's both thrilling and hugely terrifying to be asked to adapt Kubrick's great apocalyptic movie"
Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove will be adapted for the stage for the first time ever, with Armando Iannucci co-writing the new West End version with director Sean Foley.
Starring Peter Sellers in multiple roles, Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb was released in cinemas in 1964. It tells the story of a rogue US general who triggers a nuclear crisis and has been described as "an explosively funny satire of mutually assured destruction".
Talking about the new version, which will launch in the West End in the autumn of 2024, Armando Iannucci says: "It's both thrilling and hugely terrifying to be asked to adapt Kubrick's great apocalyptic movie for the stage: which is useful, since it's a thrilling comedy about huge terror. The events it portrays are no less mad today than when Stanley Kubrick made the film sixty years ago. No-one marshals madness on stage better than Sean Foley so it's been an extremely enjoyable process plotting our mutually assured destruction together. My hope is audiences will respond to Dr Strangelove on stage with bountiful laughter and shrieks."
Sean Foley adds: "It is both a privilege and a thrill to be asked to adapt and direct one of the most iconic films of all time, and working with Armando Iannucci on the adaptation has been a joy. Stanley Kubrick's 'nightmare comedy' is a perennially relevant satire on world politics and how powerful men can be stupid enough to let us all die if it means they get to brag about it. With a string of hilarious scenes and characters, and a plot that takes us to the edge of doom, I hope Dr Strangelove on stage will once again prove to be the comedy that makes us think deeply whilst we laugh our heads off."
Christiane Kubrick, Stanley's widow, notes: "We have always been reluctant to let anyone adapt any of Stanley's work, and we never have. It was so important to him that it wasn't changed from how he finished it. But we could not resist authorising this project: the time is right; the people doing it are fantastic; and Strangelove should be brought to a new and younger audience. I am sure Stanley would have approved it too."
Jan Harlan, Stanley's long-time producer, adds: "Dr Strangelove was initially conceived as a serious film based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George. During the adaptation Stanley ran into a wall: It was impossible to make a successful film about the end of mankind since nobody, himself included, would want to see it. The answer was satire. Laughing is one of our go-to responses when faced with an inescapable reality. As the film charts our short path to total self-destruction, we must make fun of it and 'all will be well'."
Katharina Kubrick, Stanley's daughter, says: "I am thrilled that Dr Strangelove is being adapted for the stage. The subject matter of this film is particularly relevant again in our prevailing political climate. People often laugh when they would rather cry, and this is exactly how the film, and now the play, handles the possibility of the ultimate destruction of life on earth; certainly, an important topic amongst many, to concentrate the mind. I greatly look forward to seeing Dr Strangelove on the stage, which I am certain will be an outstanding production of the highest calibre."
A theatre, dates, cast and further creative team will be announced in due course. The latest news will be posted on DrStrangelove.com.
Dr Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb
The lauded, satirical cinematic landmark is available in UHD (4K) for the very first time.
Nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture (1964), Stanley Kubrick's black comedy about a group of paranoia-inspired, war-happy generals who manage to initiate an "accidental" nuclear apocalypse, is horribly frightening, delightfully funny and surprisingly relevant to this day.
This is the saga of two psychotic generals: Joint Chief of Staff "Buck" Turgidson (George C. Scott) and Air Force Strategic Commander Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who orders a bomber squadron to attack the USSR, triggering a Soviet secret weapon, the "Doomsday Machine", a diabolical retaliatory missile system. Peter Sellers portrays a trio of men who attempt to avert this catastrophe.
First released: Monday 12th July 2021
4K Blu-ray- Distributor: Sony Pictures
- Region: All
- Discs: 2
- Minutes: 95
- Subtitles: English, Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish
- Catalogue: UHDR00135
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