Keep calm. Carry on. Blitz it out. Dig for history. Death to the beaches.

At the height of the Blitz, Charlotte is in a passionate affair with a Spitfire pilot, fighting fascism in red lipstick and living each day like her last.

Eighty years later, her granddaughter Becky is stuck in her hometown, cooking dinners for her dad and singing old songs at other people’s weddings, dreaming of a better time.

The 1940s are more real to Becky than her life, but when a friend moves back to town, she’s forced to face the present. What happens when there’s no war left to fight?

An epic, intimate family saga, The Winston Machine is an unmissable new state-of-the-nation show from internationally-renowned Kandinsky (Dinomania, Trap Street, Still Ill), recently hailed by The New York Times for their deeply intelligent, emotionally arresting and beautifully realised theatre.

★★★★ “intriguing, fascinating” Whatsonstage

★★★★ “a slick, insightful and often very funny exploration of the distorting power of unexamined nostalgia” The Stage

★★★★★ “Unmissable! Exceptional & innovative” Everything Theatre

The Winston Machine was commissioned and co-produced by New Diorama Theatre, and premiered there on Friday 28 January 2022. It ran at NDT until Sat 19 Feb 2022 before transferring to the North Wall, Oxford. We are currently planning to revive and tour the show in 2023 – for more information, please contact us.

Director – James Yeatman
Dramaturg & Producer – Lauren Mooney
Associate Director – Segen Yosef
Production Manager – Crin Claxton
Co-designers – Joshua Gadsby & Naomi Kuyck-Cohen
Composer – Zac Gvirtzman
Sound Designer – Kieran Lucas
Stage Manager – Grace Hans
Engagement Producer – Peter Laycock

Company of performer-devisers:
Nathaniel Christian
Rachel-Leah Hosker
Hamish Macdougall

Photography by Cesare De Giglio

The Winston Machine has been commissioned and co-produced by New Diorama Theatre, and is additionally supported by the Boris Karloff Foundation, the Thistle Trust, the Royal Victoria Hall Foundation and supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. A wraparound engagement programme for the local community in Camden and neighbouring boroughs is supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.