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Satire is most effective when mocking those who take themselves seriously. Watching Armando Iannucci’s take on Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War parody in the week Donald Trump picked ex-Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his defence secretary – “undoubtedly the least qualified nominee in American history” according to the veterans campaigner Paul Rieckhoff – takes the sting out of the original’s politics. Steve Coogan plays Peter Sellers’ three roles – the eponymous ex-Nazi bomb scientist, a well-meaning RAF captain and the US president – and tacks on the gung-ho pilot who rides the first nuke down to Russian soil. Coogan’s Strangelove is superb. It’s a brave comic who takes on Sellers and he pulls it off with brio. The set uses screens to good effect, opening the US war room to B-52 cockpits and military bases. But in following the original script so faithfully, it feels like a chance has been missed. We need our own Dr Strangelove – if anything as strange as the truth can be found.
Noël Coward Theatre, London until 25 January
