Ink by James Graham
July 29, 2017, Almeida Theatre

I love James Graham. I’m just putting that out there. I loved This House. I loved Privacy. I’ve got tickets for his next outing Labour of Love with Martin Freeman and Sarah Lancashire no less. I. Love. Him.
This is about the birth of The Sun newspaper, with the Mirror, one of the two most popular tabloids in Britain. How Rupert Murdoch (the man everyone loves to hate, a man who inspires 2 men to kidnap and kill a woman) lured Larry Lamb to be the editor of his new paper. To disrupt and crush the traditional and the Fleet St competition.
We see Bertie Carvel (that man is a true chameleon) become the reptilian Murdoch. Prowling around, back arched, face with a permanent sneer, hands flailing, goading, tempting and taunting. He has no friends. He has no morals. He’s the spider tempting Lamb to the job he’s always wanted and then turning on him when he gets what he wants.
Richard Coyle is superb as Lamb. The scene where he introduces page 3 as a tactic to beat his rivals at any cost for his paymaster is powerfully underplayed. Does he really misunderstand the implication of the decision he makes? Exploitation and sexualisaton of women done to win a competition. The simple reason behind this lack of any moral judgement is shocking.
Bunny Christie’s set is brilliantly creative and Gould’s direction classy and quirky.
My favourite scene is right at the beginning, the 5 W conversation. I work in internal comms. We lead with the why. I found it fascinating to hear this 1960s editor explain how “why” is not the most important question to answer, it’s “what next”.
5/5 What next James Graham? I can’t wait.

