Burnt by the Sun

by Peter Flannery
from the screenplay by
Nikita Mikhalkov and Rustam Ibragimbekov

5 STARS
‘A brilliant playwriting achievement, seamlessly realised in Howard Davies’s masterly production.' Independent

5 STARS
‘Funny, affecting and taut with suspense, Burnt by the Sun is a new play that already feels like a classic.’ Daily Telegraph

Colonel Kotov, decorated hero of the Russian Revolution, is spending an idyllic summer in the country with his beloved young wife and family. But on one glorious sunny morning in 1936, his wife’s former lover returns from a long and unexplained absence. Amidst a tangle of sexual jealousy, retribution and remorseless political backstabbing, Kotov feels the full, horrifying reach of Stalin’s rule.

I’ll give you one chance. Go now and type your confession. I take you and the confession to Moscow tonight – two big feathers in my cap – and maybe, maybe… they’ll spare Maroussia… as the wife of a traitor. We all have a choice, Comrade.

Poised at the beginning of Stalin’s Great Terror, Burnt by the Sun shows a brutal future encroaching on the last days of a fading world.

• Read the 5 STAR Independent review in full
• Read the 4 STAR Daily Telegraph review in full
• Read The Times feature on Peter Flannery and Howard Davies
• Click here to view our interactive newspaper, featuring timeline of Stalin's Russia, cast biographies and rehearsal photos.
• The PROGRAMME for Burnt by the Sun is available to buy from the NT Bookshop, the Olivier Bookstall and ushers at performance times, priced at £3. Click here  to read an extract and view a list of contents.

Burnt by the Sun finished on: 21 May 2009