Gareth's Culture and Travel Blog

Rupert Murdoch is my greatest bête noire. From interference in elections to invasions of privacy via oceans of tackiness & sexism and the creation of exploitive monopolies, he offends me at every turn. So I was expecting to have my prejudices pandered to in liberal Islington. They weren’t, though largely because this play about his early English adventures, in particular the rise of The Sun, takes place before he hired the evil unholy trinity of McKenzie, Morgan and Brooks, plunging his organs into even deeper moral depths. Covering little more than a year, but covering it in depth, Ink is as fascinating as it is enthralling and entertaining.

When the play starts he already owns The News of the World, but he wants a daily. He buys the ailing Sun from the Mirror Group, hires one of their own, Larry Lamb, as editor, and sets the seemingly impossible target of matching their circulation, the highest in the world at the time, within twelve months. I’d forgotten that it all started as irreverent, anti-establishment and, well, fun. Populism personified, until some tragic events close to home (which I’d forgotten) nearly killed it, only to be rescued by…..well, it’s the tits wot done it.

The relationship between Murdoch and Lamb is the beating heart of the play, and Bertie Carvel and Richard Coyle are simply terrific. I struggle to understand how playwright James Graham is so successful presenting people and events that happened before he was even born – perhaps its because he has the objectivity rather than the baggage that those of us who lived through them have. Like Our House, The Angry Brigade and the underrated Monster Raving Loony, he captures the sixties and seventies with pinpoint accuracy.

Rupert Goold’s staging owes something to his own Enron, including audacious use of music and movement to add life, and Bunny Christie’s superb set of ramshackle offices piled high, with projections behind, adds even more life. Amongst the superb supporting cast, Sophie Stanton gives another of her priceless turns as Geordie Women’s Editor Joyce, and Tim Steed is particularly good as a posh fish-out-of-water Deputy Editor.

Good to see something provide competition for The Ferryman as Best New Play! A real treat.