Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Joseph Heller’s deadpan maxim from Catch 22 could easily apply to Alec Leamas, the down at heel anti hero of John le Carré’s 1963 best selling novel. Set two years earlier, le Carré’s forensic study of secret agents shot by both sides of the Berlin Wall remains a darkly unsentimental piece of Brit-noir pulp fiction.
David Eldridge’s stage version heightens the light and shade of Leamas’ plight in Jeremy Herrin’s stiff-backed production. Played out by a cast of twelve on designer Max Jones’ array of black painted walls, this is where Leamas’s handlers in the below radar organisation known as The Circus pull the strings. As Ralf Little’s pugnacious Leamas sets out the story’s historical context, he is revealed as the ultimate burnt out cannon fodder this side of Harry Palmer. Whisky laced, tobacco stained and heavy coated, Leamas is forever caught in the crossfire of politics not of his making. Quietly steering all this is George Smiley, as played by Tony Turner as a master of manipulation who shows up today’s real life crop of middle manager mandarins as the amateurs they are.
Originally presented in the round at Chichester Festival Theatre, Herrin’s touring revival presented by the le Carré family run Ink Factory company alongside Herrin’s Second Half Productions focuses on Leamas’ everyday nightmare in a divided world. His only salvation comes through Liz Gold, the idealistic – and idealised – young librarian played by Gráinne Dromgoole. Liz’sfaith in the Party sees her too caught up in things beyond her control.
At times declamatory in tone, and given mood by Paul Englishby’s jazzy period underscore, leCarré’s world is a cynical one. Its exposure of opposing regimes as two sides of the same rouble is nevertheless as telling as the glum mundanity of institutional shenanigans where everyone is collateral damage, whichever side you’re on.
The Herald, April 23rd 2026
ends
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