Lucy Komisar
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“Murdoch: the Final Interview” gets half the story about the corrupt media mogul but misses important parts Sept 28, 2025 - Dec 28, 2025. A journalist is interviewing Rupert Murdoch about his life. Except it is more than it seems. I figured it out midway but it doesn’t really matter to say it now: it’s his conscience. Which doesn’t exist. Otherwise, the interviewer is quite hokey.
This life story moves halfway in the 90 minutes to where I wanted it to start. Which is about Murdoch’s corrupt connections with major political figures in Australia, UK and the U.S. Where he got influence from paying off politicians in the UK and Australia. Where he got media power in the U.S. because Bill Clinton changed the rules for him. And how in the U.S. his Fox News created a mass of people who have signed on to a viciousness that threatens the country. But this anonymous playwright (credit is to “an Unnamed Source”) wanted to tell how Murdoch got where he was because of a nasty father and mean mother. Sorry, lots of people have those without becoming nasty corrupt media magnates. So, as a youth at Oxford he was a socialist. With a bust of Lenin in his room. Didn’t last long. Never explained. I would have cut the unhappy childhood family psychology first half. PHOTO lk25115b Jamie Jackson as Murdoch, photo Russ Rowland.
The characters are all played by Jamie Jackson, who is fine as the somewhat suck-up journalist and not always so believable as Murdoch, who appears more diffident than his reality. Director Christopher Scott is generally good making you believe in the three key characters, interviewer, Murdoch and his father. An exception is bizarre scenes where young Murdoch is perched on a tree in the family mansion’s greenery to shout out to his father how high he has climbed. After university, Murdoch takes over The Times of London and The Sun. An uncomplimentary video interview with David Frost vanishes. The editor of The Sun was looking for people to demonize. His reporters hack the phone of a young girl who has been killed, making her parents think she is still alive. But this is the problem of this play. It gets better when it starts telling the evils Murdoch’s media did. But it is done too hastily and without detail. Others have done it better. For example, “Corruption,” by J.T. Rogers with fast-paced direction by Bartlett Sher last year. It was based on the book Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and The Corruption of Britain, by Tom Watson and Martin Hickman, who are also main characters in the play. And it developed the story in all its juicy detail.
Another Sun story, not mentioned here, an abusive attack on Elton John, was told superbly this summer at the Edinburgh Fringe by Henry Naylor. His “Monstering the Rocketman” is a riveting indictment of Murdoch’s tabloid that targeted a famous guy and then lost a defamation suit. Then there is a missed chance to detail U.S. corruption. To get Fox News, Murdoch had to do away with constraints posed by 1. His lack of U.S. citizenship, 2. the Fairness Doctrine, 3. the cross-media ownership laws: he can’t own NY Post and a TV channel in same market. There were no details. I wanted to know more about what Clinton did to finesse and change these rules. PHOTO lk25115d Jamie Jackson as Murdoch, photo Russ Rowland.
It is made clear that Murdoch’s media control led to the pollution of the press and political life in countries where they exist. Especially to Fox News as a hideous creation, his legacy, his monster, unsubtley described with a Frankenstein image on the back screen. The interviewer cites viewers’ comments that show they are made crazy and ready to kill. Now Murdoch is 94. He insists his philosophy has been “always tell the truth,” which we all know was an egregious lie. But this charlatan owns Dow Jones/Wall St Journal, Times of London, NY Post, Fox News. The problem is that the play doesn’t seriously deal with that. This is not about a psychologically damaged man but about an evil oligarch in a system where media moguls make politicians and policy. And create the lies that corrode this country. PHOTO lk25115e Jamie Jackson as Murdoch, photo Russ Rowland.
It is perhaps not possible to detail how he used his media to create fake news over decades. But some stories deserve to be told. The Frankenstein image suggests Murdoch was a monster. But a monster enabled and abetted by major western politicians. I would have started the story with Bill Clinton. He and his collaborators exist somewhere in this glitter. Visit Lucy’s website http://thekomisarscoop.com/ |
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