A PORNOGRAPHER, a dissenter and a defector's wife trapped in a flat in East Berlin during the Blockade of 1949 may sound like the opening of a bar joke, however that is the plot of the new Propaganda The Musical which premiered at the Lyric Theatre on Wednesday night as part of the Belfast International Arts Festival.
 
The show opens with a sultry burlesque dance as the audience quickly learn that Hanna (Joanna O’Hare) and Slavi (Darren Franklin) have taken to producing home-made pornography in a pre-OnlyFans age, hoping to raise enough money to escape the clutches of Mother Russia and make their way west towards Cuba with the help of Oliver (Ruddy Wolff), an American moonlighting as a Red Cross worker to trapeze the Iron Curtain.
 
Soon after, we are introduced to Margot Richter (Celia Graham) a world-famous actress and her assistant Gerhardt (Matthew Cavan), who are lured to the East Berlin apartment under false pretences. Whilst there, news reaches her that her husband has defected and is on his way to America resulting in her falling under the watchful eye of Stalin’s Red Army.

Once Margot discovers Slavi’s talent as a photographer, she sets out to make him famous although his past soon comes back to haunt him, putting them all in danger.
 
Written, directed and composed by Belfast Ensemble’s Conor Mitchell, this production harks back to the golden age of Broadway with a score that honours the great American songbook alongside Russian popular music and contains a number of songs that will be stuck in your head long after you leave the theatre.
 
The plot tackles the issues of both American and Russian propaganda – a topic that couldn’t be more relevant today, alongside issues such as domestic violence, homosexuality and sexual exploitation in a way that is both tasteful, thought provoking and entertaining.

Audience members may feel slightly perplexed by the multitude of German and Russian characters speaking in broad northern Irish accents, however coupled with references and indeed a song dedicated to the Irish revolutionaries of 1916, this adds to what is a masterclass in comedic absurdity.
 
A special mention has to go to Rebecca Caine and Sean Kearns whose supporting roles of Magdalene Von Furstenberg and Comrade Poliakoff hold the show together. This is truly a cast with phenomenal vocal ability, who will leave theatre goers mesmerised by the scale and range of their voices.
 
Mitchell is definitely on to something with this production, and I am sure that following a few small tweaks, Propaganda The Musical will have phenomenal global success.
 
Propaganda: A New Musical runs at the Lyric Theatre until 5 November. Tickets are priced from £12 and are available from the Lyric box office.