Churchill in Moscow

'Everything is possible in Moscow at night.'

The Kremlin, Moscow, 1942. A top-secret meeting between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin: one, a wealthy aristocrat from a blue-blooded line of English nobility; the other, a Georgian peasant, hell-bent on destroying capitalism and the class system. Can these two leaders find common ground? As diplomats struggle to control the escalating chaos, two interpreters find themselves caught in the eye of the storm.

Howard Brenton's gripping play Churchill in Moscow dramatises the historic meeting of two unpredictable titans as history teeters on a knife-edge. It opened in 2025 at London's Orange Tree Theatre, directed by the venue's Artistic Director Tom Littler, starring Roger Allam as Churchill and Peter Forbes as Stalin.

'Brenton is a masterly storyteller' Financial Times

'A historical thriller that unfolds as a high-stakes game of diplomatic chess... razor-sharp dialogue and layered character portrayals... deftly balances historical intrigue with moments of unexpected humour... This is more than a history lesson, it's a deeply engaging theatrical experience' - Theatre Weekly

'Spikily poetic dialogue and laugh-aloud gags... an important play by a great theatrical survivor' - Guardian

'A play bubbling with timely insights about trust, truth and the hard art of compromise' - Financial Times

'Enthralling... persuasive, with an unexpected comic sheen' - The Times

'Fascinating... dazzlingly delineates how a potentially ruinous showdown resolved itself into a meeting of minds which, arguably, won the war... unmissable' - Telegraph

'Not to be missed' - Daily Express

'Clever and witty... full of ideas, political playfulness and questing humanity' - Evening Standard