5 STARS, April 25-29. Alan Long loved every second of this action-packed comedy thriller
Matt Austin
The play is based on Graham Greene’s book of the same name, one of the products of his extensive travels among dictatorships in Central and South America and West Africa from the 1930s to the 1950s
Pre-Casto Cuba: in the midst of the cold war Wormald, a struggling vacuum cleaner salesman whose wife has left him is recruited by the British Secret Service. He is attracted by the pay and expenses which he needs to provide for his beautiful, pious but demanding and manipulative sixteen-year old daughter, Milly. However, he does not grasp the political or personal implications of the job for her, himself, or his friends and associates.
Lacking social contacts that he could use as sources of the intelligence required by his masters in London, he begins to invent: agents, situations, plots, giant weapons of mass destruction (the blue-prints for which curiously resemble the components for vacuum cleaners). He is the secret agent as novelist, who loses control of his creations. In due course truths emerge, fiction undermines reality and there are murderous consequences.
But this is Fun in Greeneland: most of the usual elements are there: corrupt police, murder, torture, betrayal, morally flawed and failing men supported by strong women, but regret, guilt and shame are absent, or at least played down. The absurdity and humour of the characters and their predicament are fully realised with hugely entertaining effect. Terror is treated as a fact of life – the casual mention of a cigar case covered with human skin taken from a torture victim may cause a mild frisson, but it is not a focus of attention or a cause of consternation and does not lower the buoyant mood of the piece.
David John King
Our Man In Havana 2017
Wormald, is sympathetically and brilliantly played by Charles Davies as the well-meaning but accident prone spy, who instigates chaos. Three other actors complete the cast and between them play dozens of parts, with many, many rapid changes of scene and character, all deftly managed with great comic timing and several incidental jokes about the preposterous theatrics that are necessary. Isla Carter, James Dinsmore and Michael Onslow are all extremely versatile and funny.
The minimal set economically suggests Havana of the 1950s with a few Spanish arches, some palms, a smoky atmosphere and the rhythmic beat of Cuban guitars. A few bars of imperial march music are stirringly played when Her Majesty’s Secret Service comes centre stage.
Our Man in Havana is listed amongst Graham Greene’s ‘entertainments’ (as distinct from his novels) and highly entertaining it is in this brilliant, rapid action, hardly ever a pause for breath version. Very enjoyable, I would enthusiastically recommended.
- Our Man in Havana is showing at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud until April 29. For tickets visit yvonne-arnaud.co.uk
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