HE’S TAKEN ON Whitehall and tackled the
White House, and now it’s the Kremlin’s turn.
In The Loop’s Armando Iannucci, the creator of
The Thick Of It and Veep, is returning to the big
screen with The Death Of Stalin. A blackly comic
satire, it sifts through the political machinations
that unfolded immediately after the Soviet
dictator popped his murderous clogs in 1953.
Loosely based on fact, the story takes Fabien
Nury’s French graphic novel of the same name
as its starting point. But Iannucci’s script — and
direction — ramps up the laughs even as the
bodies amass. Potential successors to Stalin,
Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Beria (Simon
Russell Beale) and Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), all
jockey for position, each out-scheming the others.
“We’ve been very careful not to trivialise
history,” says producer Kevin Loader. “But that
doesn’t mean the politics of succession don’t
have farcical elements.” As history attests, it’s
Khrushchev who emerges triumphant, once war
hero Marshal Zhukov directs his power against
Beria. Jason Isaacs plays the medal-festooned
soldier. “All the politicians are terrifi ed of each
other, but Zhukov’s not scared of anybody,”
he stresses. “My Zhukov is hard as nails.”
As Isaacs relates, The Death Of Stalin
combines “the real and the hilarious” in a telling
that might not be entirely historically accurate.
That’s Iannucci’s trademark, and he looks set
for another sweary showstopper.
WORDS WILL LAWRENCE
Bullets, betrayals, belly laughs.
Director Armando Iannucci’s
new satire has a very dark heart
FIRST LOOK
THE DEATH
OF STALIN
OUT 29 MARCH, 2018