A long time ago Paddy Chayefsky wrote a satirical but astonishingly prescient film script about a traditional TV news program up for grabs by corporate interests. Now Lee Hall's adaptation for the stage feels more like commentary on current events.

In a perfectly calibrated performance David Marr is news anchor for the troubled UBS TV Network, Howard Beale. Beale has just been given notice by his best and probably only friend, News Division head, Max Schumacher (Tom McBeath). Drinking too much, bored by the tenor of the news, Beale throws his script away and, breaking into a passionate rant, announces his suicide filmed live for his final program. The ratings shoot from bottom to top of the charts and management hires Beale back as the mad prophet of the airwaves. "I’m mad as hell", he shouts, driving his TV audience to stand at the windows, yelling, "And I’m not going to take it any more.” Ambitious program exec Diana Christiansen (a ruthless Alison Wandzura) moves his show to Entertainment.

Old-school newsman Max is horrified. Together with his old chum Board president Ed Ruddy (Eric Epstein) he wades into backroom politicking. At the same time, Max is besotted with Diana Christiansen, and while he refuses her professional tactics, he begins an affair with her. Tom McBeath offers a masterclass in effortless acting, realistic, understated, and boiling with passion.

Meanwhile the network is about to be taken over by a bigger corporation backed by 'Arab' money with all the local exec's, Harry Hunter (Patrick Bahrich), Nelson Chaney (Kazz Lessard) and especially V-P Frank Hackett (Gorden Law), plotting and manoeuvring. Diana Christiansen is negotiating with terrorist organizations for a show of their own.

The second act puts the audience on stage in the studio for the Howard Beale Show (HBS), making us as viewers complicit in Harold’s unravelling and the backroom skulduggery. We finally meet the shadowy, not to mention shady, Arthur, the ultimate buyer of the network. Cool, barefoot and casually solving a Rubik’s cube as he talks, Kyle Mitchell Swanson is the epitome of today’s super-executive.

Others in the cast double as the busy, well-coordinated studio crew, Board members, secretaries, terrorist, and Max’s wife (in a sharp performance from Matthilde Shisko). The set, by Emily Dotson, is spacious with several levels and an open framework, (network?) screen. Lighting design by Mark Carter kept scene changes clear and ambiance apt. This was an ambitiously technical show for a small company. Congratulations.

©2026 Elizabeth Paterson