Lukowski, Andrzej (16 June 2023). "When Winston went to War with the Wireless". Time Out . Retrieved 1 August 2023.

Led by Stephen Campbell Moore’s intense John Reith, the nascent BBC had not previously been allowed to carry news broadcasts on its wireless service prior to 7pm, for fear of stepping on the print unions’ turf. However, they receive special dispensation to report throughout the day during the strike, on the proviso that a government minister (Ravin J Ganatra’s affable JCC Davidson) signs off the bulletins. What he means by that last comment is that the BBC was in its infancy. It was a tiny startup, staffed by a group of young war veterans, misfits, impresarios, intellectuals and engineers. But Reith, a visionary with immense ambition – matched by Churchill’s immense personal ambition – understood that broadcasting could be a great democratic power. “Most of the good things of this world are badly distributed and most people have to go without them,” he wrote. “Wireless … may be shared by all alike … the wealthy and the poor listen simultaneously … there is no first and third class.” It was ok. After seeing patriots last week, during which I was engrossed throughout, I was hoping for more of the same. Unfortunately I found my mind wandering during a lot of this. It felt quite amateurish especially the people wandering on and off stage screaming in the first act. There is also only so much fast walking around a stage I could take. It should be noted that half way through the interval, a quartet of actors, led by a mischievous Kevin McMonagle, rousingly perform such a variety skit, for those not queuing for the bathroom, in it's entirety.It started with impact, I loved the live foley on stage throughout and the performances were strong, but at multiple points I found my mind wandering and the play dragging. The first half stronger than the second, where all excitement seemed to be gone. The play takes a somewhat unconventional approach to the way its characters are portrayed; Haydn Gwynne plays both a studio singer and the British Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, and indeed most of the cast successfully multi-roll, with impressive performances from Laura Rogers and Ravin J Ganatra.

The play’s title teases that Thorne, who wrote The Motive and the Cue and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, is interested in the mano-a-mano encounter between Reith and Churchill. In fact, it’s more a character study in how Reith, the son of a Presbyterian minister, tried to balance his professional ambition with his conscience and sympathy for the strikers. Is he willing to sell his soul for the BBC’s future? Stephen Campbell Moore captures this fragile hauteur well; his Reith is a pine tree blown in a storm, buffeted by memories of his gay lover and duty to his neglected wife.Thorne’s play is an unabashed celebration of the BBC and the haunted, brittle man who built it. Undoubtedly, the 1926 general strike was the making of the nascent corporation – but was it also its finest hour? It’s a question that doesn’t trouble When Winston... – but perhaps it should trouble us.