No one is having more fun in this heatwave than Tom Hollander. In Peter Morgan’s Patriots, playing the Russian oligarch turned political dissident Boris Berezovsky, he glowers. He grumps. He prances. He shouts. And he gives us one of the most compelling stage performances of the year so far. If the play sometimes gets heavy – the political and economic fate of post-Soviet Russia is no episode of Love Island – Hollander skips through it lightly.
Although written before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, Morgan’s play taps into current world events with masterful precision. The writer of The Crown and Frost/Nixon is an apt choice, too: he’s always been more interested in how power is acquired and built, and in the people who – whether by accident or design – have to wear it. We begin by meeting Berezovsky, who was found dead in 2013 in an apparent suicide, as a young man. He’s a gifted mathematician but he gives up the academic life to become a businessman and political kingmaker in a crucial era for his country.
