A new production of Alan Bennett’s hit comedy will embark on a UK tour in February 2016. Following the success of The King’s Speech, Chichester Festival Theatre and Birmingham Repertory Theatre collaborate once again on this award-winning comedy masterpiece, Single Spies.
Olivier Award-nominated Rachel Kavanaugh will direct Nicholas Farrell (as Guy Burgess), Belinda Lang (Coral Browne and Her Majesty the Queen) and David Robb (Anthony Blunt) in an extensive UK tour opening in February 2016. Further casting to follow.
Bennett’s award-winning espionage double bill is a pointedly satirical snapshot of two members of the infamous ‘Cambridge Five’, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, both recruited as spies by the Soviet Union during World War II.
In 1950s Moscow, Coral Browne receives an invitation to lunch with shunned Soviet spy, Guy Burgess, with the sole instruction to ‘bring a tape measure’. An Englishman Abroad is a wry and touching play which chronicles the pair’s fleeting friendship and Burgess’ attempts to cling to his way of life as a Soviet citizen.
A Question of Attribution gives us a glimpse into Anthony Blunt’s life of espionage within the very walls of Buckingham Palace. Following his double-life as an art historian to royalty and a Soviet spy, this witty tale of forgery and deceit culminates in a sharp and candid interrogation from Her Majesty the Queen herself.
Single Spies premiered at the National Theatre in 1988, opening to critical acclaim and receiving an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 1990.
