John Le Carré’s brand of Cold War espionage thriller has generated best-selling books and some iconic screen adaptations – but until now it hasn’t made it to the stage.
It’s a world of mystery and intrigue, where plot and counterplot mean you never quite know who is telling the truth, or what conspiracy is in play.
The biggest mystery in this touring version though is the casting of Ralph Little in the lead role of spy Alex Leamas. Leamas is an intense character: a war veteran, jaded through years as Berlin station chief for the British secret services through the division of the city after the Second World War. He is persuaded to play one last hand to reap revenge on his East Berlin counterpart, deliberately destroying his own life to become tempting bait in the trap.
Sadly, Little fails to deliver on this complexity. Like spy craft, theatre producing is a game of multi-dimensional chess, and one can only imagine a gamble that Little’s name recognition would make up for gaps elsewhere. At one point his (excellent) co-star Gráinne Dromgoole – face full of emotion, expectation, and hope – delivers a line about seeing her opposite number’s love in his eyes, but it wasn’t apparent from my spot in the stalls. I just saw the same bemused, occasionally angry, face that Little wore throughout the piece.
Little does commit to the part, particularly in a very physically interrogation scene in the second half, and has admirable diction (perhaps too clear for a character who is supposed to be a little low born) but his portrayal just lacks the subtlety needed for this deeply conflicted secret agent.
He’s not helped much by David Eldridge’s adaptation, which too often offers clunky, expositional dialogue or Jeremy Herrin’s direction, which seeks speed over everything. Scenes whizz by without much space for creativity, character, or attention to detail: Leamas spends a week ill in bed, but apparently while still wearing his suit trousers (he does have enough time to take his shoes off though). Groups of spies shuffle round in regulation trench coats, and there’s some lazy jazz, just in case you weren’t sure this a Noir Spy Thriller (TM).
The production design is sparse to the point of anonymity. We get little sense of place, save for some barbed wire that hangs over the back of the set, as we jump from London offices, to library, to GDR interrogation suite. Internal monologues are awkwardly denoted by the ignition of a blue LED strip across the back of the stage. It’s not clear why, other than perhaps they confused early audiences.
Dromgoole is easily the strongest element of the production, and there are some nice turns by other members of the ensemble: Melody Chikakane Browne is nicely spiky as suspicious librarian Miss Crail; and Tony Turner manages to dial back the pace as the stately and amoral master spy George Smiley.
It’s tricky turning a 300-page convoluted plot into a snappy and stylish stage thriller, but it can be done. There’s double and triple crossing here, but plenty of other dramas manage plot twists. I wanted to be swept up in tension, the grim brutality of the coyly-named intelligence agencies, the cruel politics of the Cold War. But, despite the best efforts of the supporting cast, I was just left a bit cold.
- The Spy Who Came In From The Cold continues at Norwich Theatre Royal until Saturday 20 June 2026, tickets £15.90-£54.91. Touring nationally, including Cambridge Arts Theatre 28 July to 1 August 2026.