Reviews of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold at Chichester Festival Theatre

"le Carré classic is a hot ticket"

"This adaptation of the cold war spy thriller elegantly compresses the narrative and boasts star-making performances"

"John Ramm as Smiley vividly captures the razor-sharp mind inside a body sheathed by good living and tweed suits. Admirers of Alec Guinness and Gary Oldman as screen Smileys may be shocked at the extreme moral ambiguity of this iteration."

"In a star-making performance, Rory Keenan agonisingly and waspishly embodies how multiple cover stories have left Leamas, as the book puts it, “at odds with himself”, with a hole at his centre that drink and bitter wit fill, leaving no room for love."

"Stylish – and slightly bewildering"

"A classy stage adaptation has all the moodiness - and the complexity - of Le Carré"

"David Eldridge’s classy fillet of an adaptation is meticulously mounted by director Jeremy Herrin, creating a loweringly sinister atmosphere of espionage double-dealing against a muted colour palette."

"The simple truth is that the majority of plays could do with being somewhat shorter than they are. This one, however, is a rare exception of a work that would benefit from being padded out a little more fully, especially in the early scenes that carefully lay the sprung trap of the plot."

"This is a fine start to what I envisage will be Le Carré’s long stage sojourn."

"Tense noirish adaptation of John le Carré thriller"

"The tools of surveillance loom over Max Jones’s set for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold at the Minerva theatre in Chichester: an ugly corrugated tin hut accompanied by a searchlight whose merciless beam sweeps the auditorium at key moments"

"In David Eldridge’s tense, gripping adaptation, staged with moody flair by Jeremy Herrin, Leamas is never not being watched from the shadows — by his superiors, by his enemies, by the audience."

"Keenan makes an excellent Leamas: wary, weary, worn. He begins crisply cynical, making sharp asides to the audience and surveying his patrician boss with undisguised contempt. But gradually he seems to sink into himself as if the air is being let out of him — it is beautifully controlled. He is matched by Ian Drysdale’s supercilious Control (head of MI6), John Ramm’s smooth master spy, Smiley, and Gunnar Cauthery’s steely ex-Nazi Mundt."

"The most touching performances are from Philip Arditti’s ardently idealistic communist, Fiedler, and from Agnes O’Casey as Liz Gold, the open-hearted librarian who falls in love with Leamas, rekindling his damaged humanity. That she is cynically used by the mission jolts Leamas into action and throws a stark searchlight on to Smiley’s questionable assertion that “intelligence work has one moral law — it is justified by results.” It’s that troubling thought that follows you out into the night."

"Stylish, cinematic treatment"

"Atmospherically staged adaptation of John le Carré’s seminal espionage thriller"

"Capturing the seething paranoia of John le Carré’s masterly 1963 Cold War thriller, this tight adaptation gets a stylish, cinematic treatment from director Jeremy Herrin. The production’s stark, noirish aesthetic is nicely suited to the bleak world of the play."

"Playwright David Eldridge invests his version with the same lingering melancholy and brittle dialogue that audiences will recognise from his pensive domestic dramas Beginning and Middle. This mode works especially well when paired with the high stakes of Le Carré’s tale, giving the piece a taut, intense energy."

"Rory Keenan’s Leamas conveys the restless, dishevelled energy of a highly driven operative running on too little sleep, releasing years of pent-up cynicism as he loses his sense of self while playing the role of a defector."

"This adaptation doesn’t quite fly"

"While it’s great to see the master spy novelist’s work finally being adapted for theatre, this adaptation doesn’t quite fly"

"While I applaud Eldridge’s ability to fillet the book for its essentials, and maintain levels of suspense, there’s an inescapable sense of busily working through – and even precising – a plot that could be consumed at a less frenetic pace in its original format."

"Wafting jazz strains lend a noirish frisson to proceedings, especially the encounters between Rory Keenan’s raffish Alec and Agnes O’Casey’s alluring Liz, the Communist librarian who takes a shine to him."

"Two-hour theatrical zip through Cold War chicanery"

"The original novel is short, evocative and involving. The Richard Burton film is striking. This two-hour theatrical zip through Cold War chicanery jogs along nicely enough without quite finding a shape entirely its own."

"It all pootles along pleasantly — which is to say mysteriously, sardonically, fitfully elegantly."

"Paul Englishby’s accomplished jazz-noir score keeps summoning up a sense of the Sixties spy film we aren’t watching. Mordant exchanges cut through, and Ramm is a magnetic Smiley, never mind the ghosts of Alec Guinness or Gary Oldman. But unlike Oldman’s new spying gig, in Slow Horses, this smart, striving, stilted yarn can’t quite carve out its territory."

"David Eldridge’s nuanced take on John le Carré"

"... I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and realised that cold war espionage not only made an extraordinary political chiller – with evident current reverberations – but was also a drastic map of human pretence, subterfuge, evasion, confrontation."

"No better playwright to chart the surprise of this than David Eldridge – creator of Beginning and Middle. His writing exceptionally combines naturalism (which includes lying and silence) and particular delicacy. In adapting le Carré, Eldridge draws on these talents, emphasising the seam of reluctant romance and giving chances to shine to appealing Agnes O’Casey and terrific Rory Keenan"

"Jeremy Herrin’s production has fine noir sequences. Not least when John Ramm as Smiley appears, overseeing the action (and looking unnervingly like Alec Guinness)."

"What is lacking is drive. Rightly seeking to preserve the novel’s enigma, Eldridge offers gaps, twists and flashbacks that are more puzzling than intriguing."