Howard Beale is a middle-aged anchor-man of a large newsroom owned by a media conglomerate which has announced upcoming changes. During a broadcast, he announces that he will commit suicide next week, which makes producers and executives fight to either keep him on screen or to keep him off. Beale himself becomes increasingly mad using every minute of his screen time to tell the viewers the truth about corporate America and its control of the prostituted media.
A dark satirical description of the development of TV news from journalism to entertainment. The 1976-film NETWORK was a prophetic masterpiece, scary and funny. Today the film’s prophecies have come true, but in Lee Hall’s effective and precise adaptation it is still a powerful warning against the effects of (new) capitalism – on the media as well as on our private lives.
Bryan Cranston in NETWORK at The National Theatre 2017
