"PRAVDA": MORE PROOF THAT THE BRITISH "CULTURAL ELITE" HAS LONG HATED MURDOCH

In 1985 I was in London and I was lucky to see the GREAT actor Anthony Hopkins in a new play at the National Theater called PRAVDA.

FROM AN ARTICLE ABOUT THE REVIVAL IN 3006:

The merciless Fleet Street satire Pravda has not been staged since 1985 - so, with a revival imminent, will it still work today? Alex Sierz meets authors Howard Brenton and David Hare, while Marc Lee flicks through his favourite movie journalists

Do newspapers tell the truth? In the programme for the original 1985 production of Pravda - written by David Hare and Howard Brenton - Brenton wrote: "Pravda means 'the truth'. English newspapers aren't propaganda sheets. The question is, why do so many of them choose to behave as if they are?"

Starring a mesmerising Anthony Hopkins as the reptilian Lambert Le Roux, a South African newspaper tycoon not unlike Rupert Murdoch (owner of The Times and the Sun), Pravda was one of the biggest hits in the history of the National Theatre. The play is an epic satire on the media in the Thatcher era; a morality tale about how Andrew, a young liberal journalist, finally succumbs to Le Roux, who makes him editor of a tabloid.

Now, some 20 years later, Pravda is being revived for the first time in a co-production between the Chichester Festival and Birmingham Rep. It's taken so long to revive because it is such an expensive large-cast venture. The play's name, of course, evokes the communist propaganda sheet of the former Soviet Union, but do Brenton and Hare still believe that the British media deserves comparison with that?

"Well," says Brenton, "it's easier to write propaganda than to write about something that's actually happening. It's easier to make bad papers than good ones, and they sell better. At the time, I was very enamoured of the idea that English people have a policeman in the head, and like to be policed in their thoughts." "We were talking about the self-censorship of the journalist," adds Hare. "And the British are very good at self-censorship."

Then, as a reminder that Pravda is a satire, Brenton says, "The title is basically a provocative joke which actually has a ring of truth." In fact, the play combines hearty jokes - characters have names such as Elliot Fruit-Norton and Ian Ape-Warden - with an acerbic criticism of the failures of Thatcher's liberal opponents.

"For the past 20 years, liberals have been on the defensive," says Hare. "In the 1980s, progressives suddenly found themselves in the uncomfortable position of being conservative and resisting change. I myself was thrown by the 1980s. This play - and my conversations with Howard - was for me a way of trying to understand what was going on.

"The old Establishment that was destroyed in the 1980s was feeble and Thatcher pushed it out of the way. Thatcher always chose her targets carefully. She backed off reforming the legal system because she knew she would lose. On the other hand, she knew she would win against the miners. She was very shrewd politically. She chose the right enemies."

On stage, Le Roux appears as a monster, although his power and certainty of purpose are highly attractive.

... The play was also about the unthinkable," says Hare, "that a foreigner should take over a British institution....

THE PLAY WAS A BLATANT ATTACK - NOT ON FLEET STREET AND THE TABLOIDS - BUT ON THAT MONSTER RUPERT MURDOCH.

IN 1985.

THE VILLAIN - THAT MONSTER, LE ROUX - WAS MERELY A PLACEHOLDER FOR THE LEFTIST AUTHORS TO HANG THEIR HATRED OF MURDOCH AND THE RIGHT; THEY MERELY CHANGED MURDOCH FROM AN AUSTRALIAN INTERLOPER TO A SOUTH AFRICAN ONE.

THEY FIRST STAGED THIS IN 1985. THEY REVIVED IT IN 2006.

YUP: THIS WITCH HUNT AGAINST MURDOCH HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR MORE THAN 25 YEARS!

THE VENOM WITH WHICH THE LEFT HAS GONE AFTER MURDOCH IN RELATION TO THE HACKING SCANDAL HAS MORE TO DO WITH THE LONG AND DEEPLY HELD HATREDS REVEALED IN THIS PLAY - (BOTH ETHNIC, PERSONAL AND POLITICAL) - THAN ANY ATTITUDE THEY HAVE ABOUT PRIVACY OR JOURNALISTIC ETHICS.

HERE'S MORE PROOF IT'S ABOUT MURDOCH AND NOT ETHICS:

THE LEFT DOESN'T GIVE A CRAP WHEN LEFTISTS LIKE WIKILEAKS HACK INTO THE PENTAGON OR WHEN LULZ HACKS INTO NEWS CORPORATION EMAILS.

AND ANOTHER THING: THIS PLAY'S TITLE... IT'S FUHREEEEEEKIN IRONIC:

THE AUTHORS OF THIS PLAY "PRAVDA" - AND THE CRITICS AND THEATERGOERS WHO LOVE THIS PLAY - ARE MORE LIKE THE TYRANNICAL STATISTS WHO RAN THE REAL PRAVDA IN THE SOVIET UNION THAN IS RUPERT MURDOCH.