Fake news is the currency in Berlin during the 1948-49 Soviet blockade in composer and director Conor Mitchell’s ambitious musical theatre co-production for the Belfast Ensemble and Lyric theatre. Personal stories of love and betrayal play out against the vast post-second world war canvas of redrawn maps and shifting allegiances. As American and British forces airlift supplies to the citizens of the devastated city, the cold war is born.
In Conor Murphy’s imposing design, a bombed-out streetscape looms, with scaffolding extending from the theatre’s orchestra pit, exposed by searchlights. The setting is the bare apartment of a Russian former war photographer, Slavi (Darren Franklin) and his self-sacrificing German lover, Hanna (Joanna O’Hare). For cash, they depend on selling erotic photographs of Hanna on the black market, with the dubious assistance of an American Red Cross serviceman, Ruddy (Oliver Lidert). When Margot (Celia Graham), a diva in Marlene Dietrich mode, recognises Slavi’s artistic talent, she draws the young couple to the attention of Comrade Poliakoff (Sean Kearns).
