Word: ultra
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Kolzak's powerful stage direction compensates for the flaws of his overambitious update. Naturalistic acting undercuts the philosophical pronouncements of each character, rescuing the production from pomposity or soap-opera sentimentality. David Moore's ultra-modern set is a nice consequence of this update; the usual drawback of a one-room set--visual boredom--is offset by diverse and dramatic lighting by Chris Stone and Ginger Thomson...
...story of master spies and code cracking was first unraveled last year in Frederick Winterbotham's The Ultra Secret. But Brown has newer intelligence and a stronger moral tone. According to his evidence, Winston Churchill, mindful of the "dull carnage" of World War I, was receptive when the pale geniuses of Oxford and Cambridge proposed "special means"-plans which often resembled the schemes of undergraduates to outwit proctors...
...miles from Bletchley in old flannels and a vest with an alarm clock tied with binder twine around his waist." Turing was "wild as to hair, clothes and conventions" and given to "long, disturbing silences punctuated by a cackle." But by 1939, confounding all predictions, he had designed an "Ultra" machine that could decode Enigma's messages...
...Ultra gave advance warning of the German air raid on Coventry in November 1940. Extraordinary defensive effort could have saved the city, says Brown; evacuation would have rescued its citizens. But Churchill rejected both courses, feeling that they would tip the Germans to Ultra. The raid killed 554 people. Afterward, the Prime Minister was photographed stumping pluckily through the ruins of the great cathedral...
...grandest deception lay in the fog surrounding Dday. Preparations were ponderous, and they aimed clearly at Normandy. But by a brilliant orchestration of fakery, constantly retuned according to the monitoring by Ultra, Hitler was led to believe that invasion was imminent in the Balkans, then in Norway and finally, even after Dday, in the area of Calais. "Special means" had created phantom invasion forces in East Anglia, opposite Calais, complete with phony inflatable tanks that looked real from the air and "complaints" from clergymen about the soldiers' habit of discarding condoms. The nonexistent army even had an illustrious commander...