Based on a play, the story details the dramatic negotiations between UK, France, Poland, Nazi-Germany and USSR from the day Czechoslovakia fell, until Britain's declaration of war on Germany caused by Hitler's invasion of Poland.
Acting
McKellen's Hitler: charming, petty, terrifyingly human
Writing
Stage origins make every conversation a trap
Director
Patrick Lau
Ian McKellen
Adolf Hitler
Michael Aldridge
Neville Chamberlain
Tony Britton
Sir Nevile Henderson
John Woodvine
Joachim von Ribbentrop
Peter Vaughan
Hermann Goering
Michael Culver
Halifax
Anthony Bate
Simon
Lee Montague
Hore-Belisha
Jonathan Coy
Butler
Ronnie Stevens
Phipps
Richard Heffer
Wallace
Bernard Gallagher
Greenwood
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Based on a 1975 play by David Edgar, originally commissioned for BBC's 40th anniversary of WWII.
The cramped sets and theatrical blocking deliberately echo the claustrophobia of 1930s European diplomacy—nowhere to run, everyone lying.
GB
