Everybody Loves a Cold War - a comic rock musical for our times

Everybody Loves a Cold War is the story of a brilliant Russian neurochemist, Dr. Sergei Korchnoi, who is close to completing his new weapon in a laboratory at the Ministry of Obsessions and Desires (MoOD) in Moscow. The patriotic Colonel Irina Pashkovina of the KGB is charged with making sure Dr. Korchnoi does not fail. In the hope of making love not war, Dr. Korchnoi leaks his plans to an old flame, Patricia Argyle, Director of the Soviet Bureau at the US Department of Social Engineering.

Everybody Loves a Cold War is an interdisciplinary original rock musical comedy written by David Cillian James that has been collaboratively developed over the course of three years by a dedicated team of artists. It is a text-based play with a vibrant rock score by Robby Sinclair; scenes are interwoven with songs which seamlessly flow together. The show contains elements of clown, jazz, contemporary, and modern dance delivered by two spy characters who flow from scene to scene as creatures with mysterious motivations.

The show evokes a nostalgia for the Cold War, a time of geopolitical tension brought on by fear, mistrust and the greed for power. Rooted in the lineage of the American Musical Theatre, Everybody Loves a Cold War draws heavily on elements and techniques of the great German theatre maker and theorist Bertolt Brecht – with projections indicating location, stagecraft revealed to the audience, a very loose ‘fourth wall’, songs sung directly to the audience, and blistering social commentary. Audiences may think of Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera, Richard O’Brian’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Slater and Sheik’s Spring Awakening – one moment laughing hysterically, the next deeply moved. We hope audiences walk away with the idea that tribalism and global mistrust can be overcome through seeing the humanity in our fellow humans; that love is the ultimate weapon to unite the world.