“We want to send people home laughing and afraid,” says Armando Iannucci, the screenwriter and satirist known for his work on the television series Veep and the movie Death of Stalin. In his latest project, Iannucci sticks to humor—only this time, he turns to the stage with an adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s 1963 film. Based on Red Alert, a 1958 novel by Peter George, Dr. Strangelove revolves around a deranged United States Air Force general who orders a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, and a president and his advisers doing everything they can to stop him. Created during the height of the Soviet War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film struck Iannucci and the director, Sean Foley, as disturbingly relevant to our current era of uncertainty and turmoil. Steve Coogan, known for his Trip movies, steps into the title role. —Jeanne Malle