Review - 'Collaborators' at the National Theatre

What the popular press had to say...

"But this production will be best remembered for its dream-casting of Alex Jennings as the harassed, haunted Bulgakov and Simon Russell Beale as a Stalin who delights in playing cat-and-mouse games with him."
Charles Spencer for The Telegraph

"Has a quirky vitality and yields two outstanding performances, its satire does not strike its intended target."
Michael Billington for The Guardian

"Simon Russell Beale and Alex Jennings deliver these scenes superbly. Russell Beale, as Stalin, is completely mesmerising, beginning full of cordial informality, but slowly revealing the cold, hard steel beneath the avuncular act."
Sarah Hemming for The Financial Times

"But while not all the satire hits the mark, Collaborators is fresh and energetic, with a thick, throbbing vein of grotesque humour."
Henry Hitchings for The Evening Standard

"The performance is a bit of a mess but Mr Beale is always compulsive viewing."
Quentin Letts for The Daily Mail

External links to full reviews from popular press
Telegraph - Guardian