Our Man in Havana By Clive Francis Based on the book by Graham Greene Directed by Richard Baron Richmond Theatre 9th – 14th November 2009 Graham Greene’s classic novel of the seedy and steamy world of international espionage was brought to life amid the Latin rhythms and smoky atmosphere of down town Richmond Theatre. Simon Shepherd gloriously leads this ensemble piece as Wormold, our man in Havana and he is expertly backed up a very strong cast of Philip Franks, Norman Pace and Beth Cordingly as they rush headlong through this fast and frenetic piece. There is nothing better than a comedy on a cold, dismal, November evening and this piece is the perfect antidote to banish those blues for underneath those hot lights, smoke and rhythms there is a world of seedy British incompetence that we all know and love. This is a magnificent cast, all well versed in their stagecraft, and they give their all in this Berkoff like rendition. The stage seemed to be a constant whirl of bright lights, nasty policemen, daiquiri’s, dancing ladies, semi naked dancing ladies or laddies, revolves and doors and toilets and through the centre of this chaos came Graham Greene’s novel, clearly elucidated. I was surprised there was not a chorographer credited, but Matthew Bugg as the Movement Director and Sally Hague as the Voice Coach have earned there feed bags as each exotic character instantly became alive on stage. Poor Wormold is a penniless vacuum cleaner salesman who has been left stranded on this remote outpost of Havana. If only it were a deserted desert island then perhaps he wouldn’t feel quite so poor amongst those free spending rich Americans that infested the bars and casinos and bright lights of pre-revolutionary Cuba. Then, from out of the haze of a smoky bar comes salvation in the form of an angel, Hawthorne who is looking to recruit a master spy. The lure of expenses is too much for Wormold, but the problem is, where is he to find his spy network? In the absence of real contacts why not use invention and create an alternative Cuba and give life to imaginary spies. What is even better is, that being inventions they have no need for their pay and expenses which he can then keep and of course the better the spy the more they need and the more they need the better a spy they become! This would be fine, even though they seem to live in a world of vacuum cleaners and the main threat to the democracy of the western world seem to be bits of vacuum cleaners. That is fine until suddenly real people start to die and the next person on the list might be the inventor himself. Too far fetched to be real? This is a classic Graham Greene novel and based upon a world that he knew intimately. Greene had worked for the British intelligence service and knew of Burgess and Maclean and he had met Kim Philby. He also knew of the German master spy, Garcia, who had a Blue Guide to England, a map and a Portuguese study of the British fleet and had managed to create a whole network of spies and gave detailed reports to the Germans without ever leaving Lisbon and had only been found out by the code breakers of Bletchley! What an inspiration for Greene and what a wonderful story and even better what a wonderful telling of that story this play is. Reviewed by Evan Rule