Jim Broadbent, Helen Mirren, Anna Maxwell Martin, Matthew Goode, Fionn Whitehead
Please note: Parallel Mothers will play in-person at Broadway Cinema only.
A perfect fit for Jim Broadbent’s overflowing charm, The Duke reteams him with Le Week-end’s director, the sadly departed Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Enduring Love). Michell’s swan song wrings emotion from a true crime yarn that’s worthy of an Ealing comedy.
1961: Kempton Bunton (Broadbent) is easing into retirement, but with a good degree of resistance to the dying of the light. Much to his wife Dorothy’s (Helen Mirren) chagrin, Kempton wages a one-man war on the BBC licence fee collectors, eventually landing him in prison. Not one to let a grudge lie, he launches a one man mission to abolish the licence fee for pensioners. The purchase of Goya’s “Portrait of the Duke of Wellington” from the public coffers is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, setting him off on a caper that’s improbable as it is drawn from life.
While The Duke could have strayed into cosier territory, there’s enough sharpness in Kempton’s anti-authoritarianism to engage a wide range of audiences. Richard Bean (National Theatre’s One Man, Two Guvnors) and Clive Coleman’s script does more than efficiently deliver a charming heist, it probes at the buried reasons that push Kempton on his quixotic path. As much a character study as it is a brilliant shaggy dog tale, those who loved the twinkle of 2019’s The Old Man & The Gun will warm to this story of kicking against the pricks.
