THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

Photos: Johan Persson

Another dramatisation of a novel, but this one is so well crafted that it really works. Of course it has been made into a movie, a good one with Richard Burton as hard drinking Leamas in the ubiquitous raincoat and in many ways, one has to come to this with preconceived ideas of those characters, in particular George Smiley. John Le Carré will always be known for those iconic cinema and TV images.

Then we get the 2024 Chichester Festival production which after a west end run and enthusiastic reviews is now touring, and very fine it is too. David Eldridge has produced a script that holds the tone of Le Carré and Jeremy Herrin’s direction and staging is clean and sharp.The set has a dark and bleak atmosphere and as it starts an abandoned bicycle on which the wheel continues to spin, a detail that is so poignant.

The large cast, many of whom populate the story in multiple roles, are excellent, the busy scenes are beautifully crafted, silent crowds shifting in the gloom to great effect. And Paul Englishby’s score is a haunting musical backdrop evoking a real sense of period.

Melody Chickakane Brown is perfect as the fierce Miss Crail, and Peter Losasso makes a delightfully sinister Mundt. Gráinne Dromgoole is Liz Gould, the communist love interest drawn into the intrigue, a modern woman not afraid to declare that she has carnal desires for Leamas although the passion is somewhat lacking between the two of them. Tony Turner’s Smiley is a shadowy figure, lurking in the shadows, contained and effectively distanced. Nicholas Murchie is Control, a darkly offhand manner in his delivery of instructions adding to the tension.

It is of course the tension that makes the whole work so well, that and the delivery of the central character is here in the hands of Ralf Little. Little is probably better know for his comedy roles in The Royle Family and Two Pints Of Lager, the scally teenager and lad about town, and later for his role in Death In Paradise, a series I always think was create to afford actors with a Caribbean holiday (I am sure they all really have to work hard of course) but a lightweight role. Here Little is charged with delivering not only a weighty role but a weighty slab of script, never leaving the stage for more than a moment. He does this assuredly and with real conviction, never missing a word or a move, this is a very exacting role and he gives a classy performance, capturing the character’s flaws and morals in equal part. There is a seedy down beat edge to his Leamas and an underlying sense of right and of justice as his story unravels, and in the chilling torture scene it is so very intense, scary and believable that one forgets that he is actually acting.

Ralf Little is showing a breadth of talent here that will surely see him cast in a wider range of roles in future.

Andrew Kay

2 June

Theatre Royal Brighton

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