BBC Radio 4, April 8 2020

A young actor is delighted to receive a phone call asking him to meet Stanley Kubrick…

Kerry Shale’s play – based on a script by Jeremiah Quinn – relates a true incident in Shale’s life when he was summonsed to appear before the legendary film director, Stanley Kubrick. As we know now – but wasn’t common knowledge at the time – Kubrick was something of a slave driver (and to be honest, that’s an understatement), and Shale’s dreams of bonding over a single take where he shows his mastery of his craft to the icon that is Kubrick are soon over.

Kubrick was by no means alone in acting like this at this time – from personal experience of a similar sadist not that many years later – and there are still echoes of that “you’ll put up with anything because you’re working with me” attitude around. I very much doubt Shale isn’t exaggerating Kubrick’s relentless nature for dramatic effect but this is by no means a dour play – there’s some fun use of Kubrickian tropes and excerpts from the musical scores to enliven proceedings, with strong sound design from Alisdair McGregor.

Shale plays a younger version of himself as quite naïve, but with a very credible air of a rabbit caught in the headlights, with Henry Goodman providing a horribly realistic Kubrick and Robert Emms as his assistant Leon, constantly caught between his master’s conflicting demands. Boz Temple-Morris’ design ratchets up the gap between fantasy and reality – and the play leaves us at just the right moment…

Verdict: Well worth listening to, this is a personal insight into the madness of genius. 8/10

Paul Simpson