London theatregoers attending a play about nuclear Armageddon are being warned that the production includes smoking and swearing on stage.
Critics have hit out at the warning given to audiences at the West End production of Dr Strangelove, a satire of an out-of-control US general who orders a nuclear strike on the USSR, risking nuclear catastrophe.
The production opening next month, starring Steve Coogan, features a warning that it “contains some flashing lights and gunshots, use of replica guns, haze, bad language and smoking onstage”.
Steve Bennett, editor of the Chortle comedy website, told the Mail on Sunday: “Given the play’s about the build-up to nuclear Armageddon, I’d absolutely hope there would be some bad language.”
Frank Furedi, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, added: “This warning is performance within a performance.
“It is an infantilised performance of virtue that aims to protect sensitive souls from being ambushed by the sight of smoking and bad language.”
The production at the Noël Coward Theatre opens on October 8 and is the first official theatre adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic 1964 film of the same name.
It is due to run in the West End until January 25 2025 before a limited run in Dublin. It has been adapted for the stage by Sean Foley and Armando Iannucci.
A spokesman for Delfont Mackintosh, which owns the Noël Coward Theatre, said that the warning was a matter for producers. The producers were unavailable for comment.
