Lenin Forever! [Drama]

Inspired by true events, Orlando Wells' irreverent and anarchic comedy tells the story of two scientists tasked with embalming the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for public display.

It's 1924. Lenin is dead. Stalin has seized power and his shadow falls over the lives of millions of Russians. A group of senior Bolsheviks, the self-proclaimed Immortalisation Commission, request the services of two scientists to aide their cause: ensure the Revolution's survival by building a shrine to their deceased messianic leader. At the time, the country's future hung in the balance; the Communist regime was still in its infancy and a personality cult was instrumental in legitimising Russia's new overlords.

Vladimir and Boris, two emminent scientists and old colleagues, are made an offer that they can't refuse: to preserve the body for eternity. And although it has never been done before, neither of them are under any illusion of the consequences of failure.

Vladimir . . . . . Matthew Steer

Boris . . . . . Ashley Margolis

Faina . . . . . Rhiannon Neads

Krasin . . . . . Kenneth Collard

Dzershinsky . . . . . David Hounslow

Lenin . . . . . Gyuri Sarossy

Nadya . . . . . Ruth Everett

The guitarist is Ian Dunnet Jnr.

Studio managers: Peter Ringrose and Alison Craig.

Sound design: Peter Ringrose.

Production co-ordinator: Gaelan Davis-Connolly.

Director: Sasha Yevtushenko.

Orlando is a writer and an actor. Lenin Forever! is his first radio play. He has also written five original plays: The Winter Room (RSC fringe festival), Cold Enough, The Tin Horizon (Theatre 503), Four Days in Hong Kong (The Orange Tree) about Edward Snowden's exposure of the NSA's spy programme, and The Woodcutter's Tale. He adapted Patrick Hamilton's The Duke in Darkness for the Chiswick Playhouse; and co-wrote the libretto for the experimental opera, Triptych, at the Print Rooms and Wilton's Music Hall. He was a series-writer for the animated children programs Xolight and Noksu.

Dark comedy about the scientists tasked with embalming the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

Dark comedy inspired by the story of the two scientists tasked with embalming the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.

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