Red Monarch

Long before David Suchet was the loveable Poirot he featured here as the somewhat less sympathetic Beria, sidekick to Colin Blakely's Stalin. This is a dark comedy, for long thought lost, directed by one of the great TV-film directors. Based on a Russian short story, it features many British character actors illuminating the bleakly murderous buffoonery of Stalin's later years, with a script by Charles Wood. The black jokes are more hit than miss, and watch out for Brian Glover as Khruschev and an uncredited Michael Palin as a projectionist.


Q&A with director Jack Gold