Cultural depictions of Winston Churchill
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Named the Greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll, and widely regarded as being among the most influential people in British history, Winston Churchill has been regularly portrayed in film, television, radio and other media. The depictions range from minor character to the biographical centerpiece, exceeding 30 films, more than two dozen television shows, several stage productions, and countless books.
Film
Year | Country | Title | Actor | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
1935 | Royal Cavalcade | C.M. Hallard |
||
1941 | Ohm Kruger |
Otto Wernicke | ||
1943 | Mission to Moscow | Dudley Field Malone | ||
1949 | Stalingradskaya bitva I | Viktor Stanitsyn | ||
1950 | The Lights of Baku | |||
The Fall of Berlin | ||||
1951 | An American in Paris | Dudley Field Malone | ||
1952 | Nezabyvaemyy god 1919 (Unforgettable 1919) |
Viktor Stanitsyn | ||
1956 | The Man Who Never Was | Peter Sellers | Voice only | |
1960 | The Siege of Sidney Street | Jimmy Sangster | ||
1965 | Operation Crossbow | Patrick Wymark | ||
1970 | Liberation | Yuri Durov | ||
1972 | Young Winston | Simon Ward | ||
1973 | The Battle of Sutjeska |
Orson Welles | ||
Days of Betrayal | Jan Vitek | |||
1976 | The Eagle Has Landed | Leigh Dilley | Plays a stand-in for the real Churchill | |
1978 | Picassos äventyr | Sune Mangs | ||
1979 | Sekret Enigmy | Józef Zacharewicz | ||
1983 | Le bourreau des cœurs | René Douglas | ||
1984 | Katastrofa w Gibraltarze | Wlodzimierz Wiszniewski | ||
1987 | Jane and the Lost City | Richard Huggett | ||
1989 | Casablanca Express | John Evans | ||
1990 | Stalingrad | Ronald Lacey | ||
1994 | Caro dolce amore | John Evans | ||
2000 | Shaheed Uddham Singh: Alais Ram Mohammad Singh Azad | Joe Lamb | ||
2002 | Two Men Went to War | David Ryall | ||
2004 | Churchill: The Hollywood Years | Christian Slater | ||
2005 | Allegiance | Mel Smith | ||
2009 | Inglourious Basterds | Rod Taylor | ||
2010 | The King's Speech | Timothy Spall | ||
Paradox | Alan C. Peterson | |||
2012 | FDR: American Badass! | Paul Willson | ||
The ABCs of Death | Torgny Gerhard Aanderaa | "H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion" | ||
Bad Ass | Tyler Tuione | |||
2015 | Queen of the Desert | Christopher Fulford | ||
2016 | Churchill's Secret | Michael Gambon | ||
2017 | Churchill | Brian Cox | ||
Darkest Hour | Gary Oldman | Won Academy Award for Best Actor | ||
Viceroy's House | Gerry George | |||
2018 | Suffragette | Ray Burnet | ||
The Battle for Britain's Heroes | Gerry George | |||
2019 | The Professor and the Madman | Brendan Patricks | ||
Operation Cicero | Gerry George | |||
2020 | The Good Traitor | Nicholas Blane | ||
2021 | Sardar Udham | Tom Hudson | ||
Audience u královny | Vladislav Benes | |||
Operation Mincemeat | Simon Russell Beale | |||
2024 | The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare | Rory Kinnear |
Television
Theatre
- Never So Good (2007) – Ian McNeice(premiere run in 2007)
- Turning Point (2009) - Matthew Marsh
- Three Days in May (2011) – Warren Clarke (premiere run in 2011)
- The Audience (2013, London) – Edward Fox (replacing Robert Hardy, who withdrew prior to press night for health reasons)
- The Audience (2015, Broadway) – Dakin Matthews
- Sylvia (2018) – Delroy Atkinson
- When Winston Went to War with the Wireless (2023) – Adrian Scarborough[2]
Music
- The Kinks recorded "Mr. Churchill Says" for their 1969 album Arthur.
- The YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured Dan Bull as Churchill in its fifth season; Churchill battled against Theodore Roosevelt, played by EpicLLOYD.[3]
- Iron Maiden included parts of Churchill's famous speech "We shall fight on the beaches" in live versions of the song "Aces High" from the 1984 album Powerslave.
- Supertramp included parts of Churchill's famous speech "We shall fight on the beaches" in the song "Fool's Overture" from the 1977 album Even in the Quietest Moments....
- "Oliver's Army" by Elvis Costello
- "Stop the Cavalry" by Jona Lewie
Radio
- NAAFI's, atomic dustbins, and throwing batter puddings at Clement Attlee.
- Churchill's Other Lives, documentary series, played by Roger Allam (2011)
Literature
- Second World War, which Wells foresaw as breaking out in 1940, lasting until 1950 and culminating in the collapse of all parties to the conflict and a breakdown of European civilization. Wells assumed that Randolph Churchill, Winston's son, would take part in a valiant but doomed effort to avert the war, delivering a "brilliant pacifist speech [which] echoed throughout Europe", but failed to end the war.[4]
- The protagonist of WWII and presumably was named for Winston Churchill.[citation needed]
- Churchill is a significant character in the 1995 novel Redemption by Leon Uris
- Players, a 1999 Doctor Who novel by Terrance Dicks[5]
- The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (2012)
- Churchill is mentioned in the Grandpa's Great Escape, 2016 by David Walliams
There are various
WWII
posit various ultimate fates for Churchill:
- In Len Deighton's 1978 SS-GB, Churchill refuses to escape Britain even when Nazi victory is certain. He is captured by the Nazis and executed, at his last moment defiantly making the V for Victory sign. In Len Deighton's 1981 XPD A group of former SS officers attempt to seize power in West Germany, in which they intend to publish some wartime documents about a secret meeting between Churchill and Hitler in June 1940.
- In Lord Halifaxcravenly surrenders to the Nazis without fighting. Churchill, holding no official position of any kind, organizes some of his neighbors for a foredoomed defiance, confronting the German soldiers who arrive in their countryside with an assortment of shotguns and all of them getting killed. Time travelers from a bleak world of the 1970s return to 1939, contact Churchill and Roosevelt and provide information enabling them to do better and defeat the Nazis, creating the history we know.
- In Leo Rutman's 1990 Clash of Eagles, Churchill escapes via the Bahamas. When the Nazis follow up their conquest of Britain with an invasion of the US, occupying New York City and much of the East Coast, the exile Churchill urges the Americans to go on resisting.
- A similar role is given to Churchill also in the Nazi-dominated 1960s of Government in exile.
- In Worldwarseries (1994–2004), in 1942 Extraterrestrials invaded Earth, forcing humans to stop fighting each other and unite to face the common threat. Churchill managers to beat off a large scale Extraterrestrial invasion of Britain, but must concede the reptile invaders – who prefer warm climates – in permanent occupation of most of the British Empire.
- of Blacks.
- In Harry Turtledove's 2003 In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Churchill and the remnants of the British Army resist to the bitter end, ultimately falling to defeat, though the exact circumstances of Churchill's death are undescribed.
- In Harry Turtledove's The War That Came Early series (2009–2014), elements in Neville Chamberlain's government are receptive to Rudolf Hess's proposal that Britain stop fighting the Nazis and rather join them in a war against the Soviet Union. When Churchill, the war minister, objects, he is killed in a suspicious car accident.
- In Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen's 1995 1945, Germany did not declare war on the US in 1941. In 1945 two separate wars end, the US victorious against Japan but the Nazis victorious in Europe. Britain remains unoccupied but its situation is precarious. In 1946 Churchill faces a land invasion of Britain, headed by Erwin Rommel, and bombings much more severe than the 1940 London Blitz, and is desperately begging for American help
- Winston's War (2002) – Michael Dobbs
- Never Surrender (2003) – Michael Dobbs
- Churchill's Hour (2004) – Michael Dobbs
- Churchill's Triumph (2005) – Michael Dobbs
- In Imperial Japan never attacks Pearl Harbor, resulting in Churchill being removed from office and the British Empire pulling out of the war.
- In C. J. Sansom's 2012 Dominion, in the 1950s in which the Nazis occupy Great Britain through a puppet government, an ageing Churchill is leader-in-exile of the British resistance movement.
- In cold waragainst the United States that the empire eventually wins, Churchill remains Prime Minister until his death.
- In Guy Saville's The Afrika Reich (2011) the United Kingdom is defeated by Nazi Germany during the Dunkirk Campaign, Churchill resigned, Lord Halifax becomes Prime Minister and signs a non-aggression pactwith Germany ending the war.
- In Axis Powers. Churchill and other anti-Nazi politicians are imprisoned on the Isle of Man.
- In Murray Davies Collaborator (2004) Nazis conquer the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State, Churchill along with the British Royal Family flee to Canada where he leads a government in exile.
- In Philip Kerr's Hitler's Peace (2005) Adolf Hitler, realising he is going to lose the war, tries to negotiate peace with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Churchill refuses to listen and will only except unconditional surrender.
- In Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron (1995) Count Dracula is Supreme Commander of the Central Powers armies during World War I, Churchill who is a vampire in the world, is a member of Lord Ruthven's cabinet.
Miscellaneous
- The 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony featured an animated version of Churchill's statue in Parliament Square, which James Bond and the Queen fly over in a helicopter: as they salute him, he raises his cane in response. It also featured an appearance from Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill.
- Churchill was featured in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate as an ally to Lydia Frye.
- Churchill was supposed to appear in the 1941 film Citizen Kane with Charles Foster Kane during the News on the March sequence but was cut due to runtime.
- A paperweight likeness of Churchill, based on a portrait by Dora Marr, was produced in a limited number by Baccarat in 1954.[6]
- Churchill is one of the main characters in the webseries Super Science Friends. He assembles a team of famous scientists to win World War II. He is voiced by Adam Shaheen.
- A fictionalised Churchill appeared in the Strike Witches series.
- Doctor Who: The Churchill Years is a series of audio drama released by Big Finish Productions, Ian McNeice reprises his role as Churchill from the TV show.
- Churchill is currently being portrayed by British actor David Payne in a solo performance tour in the United States.[7]
References
- ^ Barsanti, Sam (18 June 2015). "John Lithgow will play Winston Churchill on Netflix's The Crown". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
- ^ "Donmar Warehouse reveals complete cast for "When Winston Went to War with the Wireless"". WhatsOnStage.com. 24 April 2023. Retrieved 31 July 2023.
- ^ Theodore Roosevelt vs Winston Churchill. Epic Rap Battles of History, 2016-12-26, retrieved 2023-01-02
- ^ The Shape of Things to Come references Archived 29 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine, telelib.com; accessed 3 July 2014.
- ISBN 978-1-4766-2981-0.
- ISBN 978-0-9619547-2-7
- ^ Arena, Broadmoor World. "Churchill starring David Payne | Broadmoor World Arena". www.broadmoorworldarena.com. Retrieved 2023-02-22.
External links
- Winston Churchill – character page on the IMDb