Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Rolf Lassgård, Anders Mossling, Artur Svorobovich, Kestutis Stasys Jakstas, Andrius Bialobzeskis, Filip Berg, Mark Noble, Niklas Engdahl, Per Ragnar, Harry Jansson, Per Lasson, Anders Karlsson, Rolf Lydahl, Oskar Vygonovski, Elsa Saisio, Daniel Hansson, Vytautas Kaniusonis, Adam Lundgren, James Studdert, Giedrius Kiela, Albinas Keleris, Philip Hughes, Vladislav, Onischenko, Jekaterina Makarova, Andrew Lowery, Cecilia Forss, Anton Lundqvist, Katrin Sundberg, Andrius Ziurauskas, Annika Nordin, Jörgen Persson.
Cynics of the art of satire will claim that it dehumanises those that often cannot answer back to the charges against them, that their foolishness is taken out of context, and that is more damaging to history’s investigations than direct criticism; and yet satire as a medium is often more truthful that any legitimacy provided by propagandists and apologists the world over.
We need satire more than ever, we desperately require writers to pop the pompous bubble of the inflated political egos, both in the present, and those who were deemed beyond reproach in the past, for if we are in a position, as could well manifest, where we are destroyed, beaten, imprisoned, or even made to disappear because of a single word spoken out of turn, then satire will no longer be our saving grace, it will be the yardstick to which we yearn to hold to fight back.
If in the 21st Century we lack the wit to bring present day leaders to their knees, then at least we can look back at a period ripe for mockery, a time when the strange and collective dull found a way to become headliners, a travesty of decency as they took almost every opportunity to play out their dreams of war.
Henrick Jansson-Schweizer’s Whiskey On The Rocks is an eye-opening statement of intent as it pauses on the events that surround U-137, a Whiskey class submarine which grounded itself off the coast of Sweden in 1981, and whilst war, especially the possibility of a Nuclear conflict, is not humorous in itself, the truth behind the players at the top requires attention, a near reckless President of The United States, Ronald Regan, almost desperate to flex his muscles and take on Brezhnev and his Russian navy, Europe once more becomes a prize of submission.
One man portrayed as a ravaging war monger with an itchy nuclear trigger finger, the other a slobbish, boorish, drunken, near ineffectual leader who’s public either detested, didn’t trust, or openly adored, and a third to whom in any other hands would have seen war spread rapidly out of control. It is to this that Sweden’s Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin calm head and resonating diplomacy saved the continent from being erased off the map in a tit-for-tat exchange fuelled by a small error of judgement.
The case is one that seems to have flown under the radar in terms of history’s major events, and perhaps that is what makes it such a compelling tale, a serious comedy that creates a hero of thought and cool head in Mr. Fälldin and shows just how dangerous it is to have unchecked posturing at the helms of state.
Henrick Jansson-Schweizer deserves a heft congratulations for his portrayal of the events that could have led to disaster, a matchstick held to a pit of TNT, already combustible, and made worse by the oppositions of world ideologies. Written with absolute style and warmth, a weary eye revealing what might have happened if someone had dared strike the match; Whiskey On The Rocks is compulsive viewing.
Ian D. Hall