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Vodka with Stalin

MY PLAY Vodka with Stalin returns to Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate Village for a limited run - 16 to 27 October - and tickets are now on sale.

It tells the true story of Rose Cohen, a British Communist who went with her Russian husband to Moscow, just in time for the start of Slatin’s purges in the 1930s. Can her former lover Harry Pollitt, now Britain’s Communist leader and a drinking chum of Stalin, protect her?

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David Malcolm as Harry Pollitt and Miranda Colmans as Rose Cohen

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Here’s what they said about it first time round:

  • “As always with Francis’s work, you cannot fail to become emotionally and physically close to the characters.” John McDonnell MP, The House Magazine.
  • “Vodka with Stalin is terrific theatre on cruelty to individuals in pursuit of a collective goal.” Kevin Maguire, political editor, Daily Mirror.
  • “I was spellbound. The best political play since the David Hare classics. Terrific acting.” Denis MacShane, former Minister for Europe, former NUJ president
  • “Deeply researched and compelling.” Mary Conway, Morning Star.
  • “Francis Beckett is particularly skilled at writing political plays which also bring out the humanity in his characters.” Lizzie Loveridge, Theatrevibe/
  • “An enjoying and informative historical play with a solid narrative.” All That Dazzles.
  • “Beckett’s achievement – and that of the cast and of the director Owain Rose – is to take a tiny but actual episode from the gigantic historic car crash that was the Soviet revolution and enthral a 21st century audience in a London pub with the human emotions that both drove and destroyed it.” London Pub Theatres.
  • “An extraordinary play about love and betrayal in the communist movement.” Nick Cohen
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Denise O'Leary and Silas Hawkins as Ivy and Maxim Litvinov

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For tickets, follow this link or phone the box office on 0208 340 3488.

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