By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ***1/2

WHEN?: Monday 4 December, opens 12 December and runs through 27 January 2024 RUNTIME: 160 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

Luke Thallon (Camp Siegfried, Old Vic, main picture) plays composer Wiktor who longs to write in communist-controlled Poland in 1949 and is drawn to the talented young singer Zula.

• Read on for reasons including how this downbeat show has real sparks

Cold War is a play with music based on the film by Pawel Pawlikowski and includes original songs by Elvis Costello alongside more traditional Polish folk music.

Wiktor and Irena played by Alex Young (Standing At The Sky’s Edge, National Theatre) form an unlikely trio with manipulative promoter Kaczmarek (Elliot Levey, an Olivier Award winner for Cabaret at The Kit Kat Club) as they search for traditional music and a cast to sing it.

Wiktor falls for the bold and brilliant Zula as they tour Europe and he defects for Paris while in Berlin but she chooses not to.

We’ve not seen the 2018 film on which this play with music is based but it received 3 Oscar nominations and the Costello songs add a twist to the tale of a composer who is happy to compromise in his youth but finds it harder to live with himself and write his own songs as he ages.

Conor McPherson (Uncle Vanya, Harold Pinter Theatre) wrote the book, Rupert Goold (Dear England, Prince Edward Theatre) directs and this is powerful material about the nature of love, infatuation and creating art at a time of immense political upheaval.

Thallon is simply 1 of this country’s finest actors and here gives life to a character with a wry sense of humour who we don’t entirely trust and his chemistry with the magnetic Chalotra brings this potent brew to life.

There are real sparks when Thallon sits at his piano musing on the song he is writing (Costello’s I Do (Zula’s Song)) which brings real joy to a downbeat show.

If we had 1 criticism it would be that we were more interested in Zula’s backstory than Wiktor’s and it is not a tale that ever quite reaches the centrestage it deserves here.

But fans of traditional Polish folk music and dancing are certainly not shortchanged here and Cold War provides an intoxicating and beguiling brew of counter-programming for this winter season.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Almeida Theatre Tickets
• Have you seen Cold War before and are you a fan of Elvis Costello?
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