July 13, 2007
There’s a big desk, with wads of paper on it, and three telephones, which all start to ring simultaneously. A coffee table with newspapers on it, a big leather armchair, and another table, overflowing with caviar, biscuits, a champagne bucket, cigars and a huge ashtray. Hmm, I thought. A couple of hours in the presence of ‘Captain Bob’? Do I really want to do this to myself? Then I have no choice, because there he is, storming across the stage to answer the calls. One by one he tells the caller, in forceful language, to go away. For once, from beyond the grave, Maxwell has a chance to answer the serious accusations that were made about his character after his body was found on November 5th 1991, and massive fraud was uncovered. And he does it very, very well.
Philip York, in this fascinating eighty minute conversation-cum-lecture, shows us all the charm, guile, insecurity and greed of a man who was the victim of racism and snobbery, which in their turn fuelled his hunger for love, recognition, and power. During the first act, we are reminded that Maxwell spoke eight languages – fluently – was awarded a gallantry medal by Monty, had almost all of his family killed by the Nazis, ran a newspaper for the British army when he was 21, and started Pergaman Press aged 28. “Indisputable facts.” When he tried to buy The News of The World his takeover was resisted because of a racist editorial about him in the paper, and it was eventually sold to one Rupert Murdoch for seven million pounds less than Maxwell had bid. “Fact, indisputable fact.”
During act two, he stops answering the phone by stating his name, but merely says, “The Publisher”, because he has bought the Daily Mirror, and we compellingly watch his ego over-inflate: he gives us a master class in how to dominate others and get your own way, usually by shouting louder than anybody else. Maxwell got into money trouble, owing three million pounds a day in interest payments as Britain experienced its worst slump since the 30s, and it was all the banks’ fault.
And how did he die? Really? Sorry, I won’t tell you. I want you to go and find out for yourself, because Rod Beacham’s script is, by turns, poetic and brutal, and Philip York’s performance is mesmerising. By the end, I felt exhausted by the torrential force of this man’s personality, astonished to live in a world where the media can distort people’s character so shamelessly, and uplifted by the power of theatre. Rod, and Philip, job done.
Philip York, in this fascinating eighty minute conversation-cum-lecture, shows us all the charm, guile, insecurity and greed of a man who was the victim of racism and snobbery, which in their turn fuelled his hunger for love, recognition, and power. During the first act, we are reminded that Maxwell spoke eight languages – fluently – was awarded a gallantry medal by Monty, had almost all of his family killed by the Nazis, ran a newspaper for the British army when he was 21, and started Pergaman Press aged 28. “Indisputable facts.” When he tried to buy The News of The World his takeover was resisted because of a racist editorial about him in the paper, and it was eventually sold to one Rupert Murdoch for seven million pounds less than Maxwell had bid. “Fact, indisputable fact.”
During act two, he stops answering the phone by stating his name, but merely says, “The Publisher”, because he has bought the Daily Mirror, and we compellingly watch his ego over-inflate: he gives us a master class in how to dominate others and get your own way, usually by shouting louder than anybody else. Maxwell got into money trouble, owing three million pounds a day in interest payments as Britain experienced its worst slump since the 30s, and it was all the banks’ fault.
And how did he die? Really? Sorry, I won’t tell you. I want you to go and find out for yourself, because Rod Beacham’s script is, by turns, poetic and brutal, and Philip York’s performance is mesmerising. By the end, I felt exhausted by the torrential force of this man’s personality, astonished to live in a world where the media can distort people’s character so shamelessly, and uplifted by the power of theatre. Rod, and Philip, job done.