In 1976, Harold Wilson announces his shock resignation as Prime Minister and the Labour government has a sudden power vacuum. Feuding cabinet giants – Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey and Tony Crosland – meet to discuss who should succeed him.
Play-writing duo Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s new play looks at the how fractured friendships and bitter rivalries came to destroy the politicians’ mutual goal, instead ushering in eighteen years of Tory rule.
We caught up with Khan and Salinsky, who answered our questions as a collective, to find out more.
Q&A with Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky
What can you tell us about The Gang of Three?
The idea was pitched to us by a leading producer, who suggested the relationships between Roy Jenkins, Tony Crosland and Denis Healey – three brilliant and larger than life politicians – could make a fascinating piece of theatre. And given that we had already written a play about the Lib Dems and the Tories we thought it was time to explore the Labour party. While the tone of this piece is less out and out comedy than some of our previous work, there are lots of funny lines as well as real drama and pathos, based on these three titans of British politics.
What was it about that moment in political history that resonated with you today?
There remain deep parallels between today and the politics of the 1970s: a desperate search for growth, an energy crisis, inflation and cuts – which answers the question always posed to new writing: ‘why now? And even more than that, we once again have a Labour government dealing with similar issues to the 1970s, so this play has the virtue of being simultaneously a piece a history that is also bang up to date.
How challenging is it to write about real events and real people?
As this is a play about real people we were determined to speak to people who knew them. This involved a delightful morning spent with Bill Rodgers (one of the SDP’s founders) in his London home, going through the script while he told us where we had got it right – and wrong. Because one of the real responsibilities we felt was in writing about characters who have living descendants and surviving friends, and we’ve been careful to not go further than the research would justify, even if the dialogue has to be our own creation.
How does it feel to be taking the play to King’s Head Theatre?
It’s great. The King’s Head is the successor theatre to the former King’s Head pub theatre, a mainstay of London theatrical culture for over fifty years, and who knows if our protagonists had seen plays there, or any of the many west end transfers that came from the pub venue. But what’s really exciting is to be one of the first plays in the new brand spanking new theatre. It’s a wonderful space which will ably serve this play about political intrigue, within touching distance of the players.
Is there anything you hope audiences (or politicians) take away from the show?
As Sam Goldwyn once said, if you want to send a message, send it by Western Union. So we have set out to hopefully write an entertaining, dramatic and funny play that the audience can then take from it whatever they want. But if you wanted to know what the themes are, then I guess I would answer, can you have true friends in politics – and timelessly – do the ends justify the means?
The Gang of Three is at King’s Head Theatre from 30 April to 1 June 2025
