Complex look at a complex man

LIES HAVE BEEN TOLD
TRAFALGAR STUDIOS 2
By Anna Brooks-Gallerani

A fraudster, a freedom fighter, a spy – call Robert Maxwell what you like but one thing is for sure – you couldn’t make him up. Or could you?
Journalists have certainly tried – following Cap’n Bob’s suspicious death in 1991 and the discovery that he had plundered more than £400 million from his employees’ pension pots – hacks built a cottage industry on conspiracy theories.
As its title suggests Lies Have Been Told – a revival of Rod Beacham’s sell-out show earlier this year – sets out to uncover the man behind the mystery.
There are no startling revelations – Maxwell’s dirt-poor upbringing as a Czechoslovakian Jew, his undoubted bravery during World War II and his subsequent struggle up the greasy pole as he forged his media empire – is a story that’s been told countless times before.
What is unique here is Beacham’s skill in turning the tables on the audience itself, using Maxwell’s mantra that “these are the indisputable facts” to challenge us into re-thinking the myths that became Maxwell’s legacy.
In this one-man theatrical tour de force, Philip York (Maxwell) is a latter day Richard III, alternately cajoling and bullying the audience.
One minute he is disarming with knowing looks, winks and nudges as he boasts “I had it all and I deserved it,” the next he’s the bruiser hectoring us with “Give me one good reason why I should trust you?”
York carries off this Machiavallian tycoon with great panache but his path is oiled by a clever script, which straddles a fine line between comedy and tragedy.
Here we have a man at once ridiculous – “I’m a genuine socialist” he declares as he gorges on beluga and knocks back the champagne – and pathetic – as when he dons an England T-shirt in an attempt to butter up the establishment that shunned him. Complex stuff.

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