Armando Iannucci to pen stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr Strangelove’

The Thick Of It creator Armando Iannucci is set to pen a stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film Dr Strangelove.

The legendary film – officially titled Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb – hit screens in 1964.

Discussing his adaptation, which is the first time the film will be adapted for the stage and will come to the West End in late 2024, Iannucci told BBC News: “As a story, weirdly it hasn’t gone away.

“It seems the right time to remind people of the mad logic behind these dangerous games that superpowers play.”

While appearing on BBC Radio 4‘s Today programme, Iannucci added: “In these sad times, what better way to cheer the nation up than a stage show about the end of the world.”
He added: “We started talking about this adaptation several years ago, but now with the war in Ukraine and the whole nuclear question, it just hasn’t gone away. I think a lot of our art is less about the past and more about the future.”

His co-writer and director Sean Foley added: “The themes within it are perennially relevant: the climate catastrophe, the end of the world is somewhere in our consciousness all the time now.”

Kubrick’s family also commented on the adaptation, which is the first time his work has been reproduced since his death.

His widow, Christiane Kubrick, said: “We have always been reluctant to let anyone adapt any of Stanley’s work, and we never have. It was so important to him that it wasn’t changed from how he finished it.

“But we could not resist authorising this project: the time is right; the people doing it are fantastic; and Strangelove should be brought to a new and younger audience. I am sure Stanley would have approved it too.”

In 2018, a new screenplay by Kubrick was discovered 60 years after it was first written. Entitled Burning Secret, the piece of writing was uncovered by Bangor University professor Nathan Abrams while he researched a book about the director’s last project, Eyes Wide Shut.