Churchill is Once Again in His Finest Hour

 

On Saturday night, I ventured to the Calderwood Pavilion in Boston's South End to see Churchill, a one-man play written by and starring David Payne as Sir Winston Churchill.

Set in June 1963 before a dinner of the Oxford American Society at Blenheim Palace (his place of birth), Churchill regales the audience with a series of encounters resulting iChrn both success and failure. David Payne, who became an actor late in life, embodies Churchill in such a way that one would think that you are in his company.

The play is sprinkled with some of Churchill's famous anecdotes such as with Lady Astor, the UK's first female member of the House of Commons. Astor is to have said to Churchill, "If I were married to you, I'd put poison in your tea." To which, Churchill is to have replied, "If I were married to you, I'd drink it." However, it appears this quote wasn't uttered by Churchill at all. But it sounds good when Churchill says it or when Payne channels Churchill says so.

During the play, there were monologues about Churchill escaping a POW camp during the Boer War, his reconsideration of the Boer War following a conversation with Mark Twain, his shortcomings at the Battle of Gallipoli, his redemption as an infantry officer in WWI, how a nod and a bow helped Orson Welles secure financing for a film and Charlie Chaplin giving him an impromptu performance as the tramp. There were also Churchill's encounters with U.S. Presidents - Herbert Hoover, FDR, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and JFK (albeit when he was a Senator). 

The audience notably clapped when Churchill quoted Truman on why he turned down lucrative jobs after the presidency. Truman is to have said, "You don't want me. You want the office of the president, and that doesn't belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it's not for sale." In view of our current President and how he got a piece of the action with Intel and being gifted a jet by Qatar, Truman's sentiments are refreshing even if he didn't phrase it exactly in that way.

Of course, Churchill will be best remembered for his leadership during WWII in taking the fight to Hitler. In a sense, this one-man show is timely considering the efforts of those on the far-right engaging in historical revisionism cast Churchill as the villain of WWII while sanitizing Hitler. One can only hope that Churchill can go a long way in nipping such revisionism in the bud. 

With Churchill, David Payne gives us his finest hour.