OUR MAN IN HAVANA To 21 November.

Nottignham/Tour.

OUR MAN IN HAVANA
by Graham Greene adapted by Clive Francis.

Nottingham Playhouse: T0 24 October 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat 22 Oct 1.30pm.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.

TICKETS: 0115 941 9419.
www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk
Review: Alan Geary 16 October.

Sparkling entertainment. It should pull them in.
Coming just four weeks after the last one, this looks like another hit for Nottingham Playhouse. Our Man in Havana, this time directed by Richard Baron, deserves to pull them in.

Simon Shepherd, recently in Pack of Lies, another espionage piece, is in his element as Wormold, a broken-down vacuum-cleaner salesman caught up in spying when he’s recruited by MI6. He and most of the other characters are seedy and mercenary - this is after all adapted from Graham Greene - but Wormold is additionally a silly ass mired in circumstances not entirely of his making.

Shepherd plays only Wormold, but three other actors cover all the other parts; some nifty character changing is part of the fun of the evening. And a very imaginative and satisfying set facilitates neat and near-instant shifting of scene.

Actors also lend a hand with narration wherever necessary, getting laughs in the process. Beth Cordingly, very leggy in her risqué parts, is excellent as Womold’s daughter Milly and as Beatrice, love-interest sent from London. Philip Franks is equally excellent, particularly as Hawthorne, the man from MI6, and Hasselbach, a non-mercenary German émigré in glasses and porkpie hat.

Norman Pace, a more limited actor, entertains all the same; he plays the corrupt Segura, and at one point he’s a nun - Irish naturally. It being Greene, there has to be a Catholic angle to the plot. Seventeen-year-old Milly, it turns out, is going through a pious phase.

It’s all very satirical and funny; for instance in the scene where a dog attending a formal dinner gets despatched. But there are also touches of real profundity, for instance when Hasselbacher recalls how he killed a Russian soldier in the Great War.

This is sparkling entertainment.

Wormold: Simon Shepherd.
Hawthorne/Hasselbacher/Carter: Philip Franks.
Lopez/The Chief/Segura: Norman Pace.
Milly/Beatrice/Sanchez’s Woman: Beth Cordingly.

Director: Richard Baron.
Designer: Ken Harrison.
Lighting: Matthew Eagland.
Sound: Ian Horrocks-Taylor.

2009-10-19 21:37:23