Single Spies

Chichester Festival Theatre, Oaklands Park, Thursday, February 4, to Saturday, February 13

ANYONE who thought the dark days of the Cold War were over was probably shaken by the revelations surrounding the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

The recent inquest into the former KGB officer’s death from a cup of polonium-laced tea has caused diplomatic unrest, and perhaps underlined who the real Vladimir Putin really is.

This double bill from Alan Bennett looks at perhaps a more romantic time of espionage – telling two stories of the infamous Cambridge spy ring, the group of upper class English university graduates who betrayed their country from deep within the establishment.

An Englishman Abroad began life as a television play, first screened in 1983 starring Alan Bates as former spy Guy Burgess and actress Coral Browne as herself, based on a true-life meeting between the two in Moscow while Browne was on tour.

Bennett married it to A Question Of Attribution in 1988 at the National Theatre. The second play focuses on the MI5 interrogation of Anthony Blunt, surveyor of the Queen’s pictures, about his role in the spy ring.

“There are little crossover moments which we were delighted to find,” says Rachel Kavanaugh who is directing a six-strong cast for a national tour which starts at Chichester Festival Theatre.

“In each play both men give them same reason for doing what they did, using the same words. Together the plays are definitely greater than the sum of their parts – seeing the two together will be rewarding.”

To continue the links Single Spies features the same cast in both plays – with David Robb playing Anthony Blunt in A Question Of Attribution, and taking on the smaller role of a tailor in An Englishman Abroad – a combination Bennett played himself in the original production.

Nick Farrell is the charismatic Guy Burgess in An Englishman Abroad, while playing an MI5 interrogator in the second play.

But probably the best two roles belong to Belinda Lang, who takes on both the formidable Coral Browne and The Queen.

“The first play came about because Coral Browne reported to Alan Bennett about this meeting she had with Burgess in Moscow,” says Kavanaugh. “She was an extremely straight-talking woman. The Queen [in A Question Of Attribution] is much more covert, it is much more about code and people having conversations on more than one level.”

The two styles of the short plays reflect the men at the heart of them.

Blunt was only an active spy for a short period of time during the Second World War, who managed to get out, partly because Russia appeared to let him go.

He confessed to the secret service in the early 1960s, and spent 15 years with his secret intact, until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher publicly announced his role in the spy ring in 1979.

“Burgess was much more active and productive,” says Kavanaugh of the spy who defected to the USSR in 1956.

“He hated Moscow. He was a Communist, and he wanted to live in the Communist system, but an English version of it. He didn’t want England to become like Russia.

“He spent his time talking about England, reading Jane Austen novels, getting the English newspapers and catching up on gossip from any English visitors he could find. He never learned Russian. He became a desperate man – an alcoholic who basically drank himself to death.”

Blunt too drank a lot, with Kavanaugh pointing to the incredible stress he must have been under to keep his former life a secret.

“There are moments in the play where you see him anxious and worried,” she says.

“By the end of the play he is threatened with exposure. There is a great metaphor between the spy ring and the world of art and art history, where you keep uncovering more and more people in a painting.”

Kavanaugh says the audience should warm to both men.

“Bennett is interested in the spies rather than the spying,” she says, adding the playwright had been very supportive about the production.

“They are character studies – he was interested in their personalities.

“The plays didn’t need any revising – they are perfect with no fat in them.

“I love working with Bennett’s writing – it is always incredibly rewarding. They are great for the company - the writing is so actor-friendly.”

Starts 7.30pm, 2.30pm matinees Thurs and Sat, tickets from £14. Call 01243 781312.