REVIEW: Philip York as Robert Maxwell

A Czech Jew who escaped the Nazis but lost most of his family, he fought in the war and continued to battle to earn his way to the top of the newspaper trade.

How can you not admire a man who spent his childhood hungry and living in poverty but ended up with a diet of champagne and caviar '“ even if you have to ignore the villainy of the latter years of his existence?

That is one side of the tycoon brought to the fore in the one-man play Lies Have Been Told: An Evening With Robert Maxwell.

Former Worthing High School pupil Philip York treated an audience, including former employees of the man himself, to a thoroughly convincing performance as Maxwell as part of the Brighton Festival Fringe on May 26.

First performed at the Edinburgh Festival, the play is mesmerising, funny, enlightening and resurrects the engaging and larger-than-life character just how you would imagine him.

He swears down the phone, takes no nonsense, guzzles champers, throws half-eaten caviar around and bullies the audience but at the same time he exudes charm.

"You want some, don't you," he said to a spectator of the caviar. "If you want it, earn it, like I did."

Maxwell takes us through his life, from poverty to gaining a medal in the army, from his first big idea to publish scientific material to buying the Mirror.

Along the way, we learn some tricks of the trade, what he says are the ("indisputable") facts and that lies have been told about him. But can we believe what he says?

At the end of the day, you have to decide for yourself. Like you do which scenario ended his life. Was he pushed off his luxury yacht in 1991? Did he fall? Was it suicide?

We will never know but Philip York and scriptwriter Rod Beacham have given us a greater insight into this interesting character and a thoroughly enjoyable evening to boot.

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