First-ever on-stage le Carré is Chichester sell-out
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold in Chichester’s Minerva Theatre was a sell-out long before the run started.
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00:00Good morning, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at West Sussex Newspapers, and
00:07lovely this morning to speak to Rory Keenan, who is in something really very, very special
00:11indeed in the Minerva shortly. The first ever stage adaptation of a John Le Carre, The Spy
00:18Who Came In From The Cold, and the remarkable thing is the entire run sold out ages ago.
00:24Now, how come it hasn't happened before, Le Carre, and does it surprise you that you're
00:29a complete sellout before you've even stepped onto that stage with an audience?
00:34It doesn't surprise me that we sold out. I think the prestige of both the Minerva and
00:41the director, and Le Carre, I think is a perfect kind of cocktail for a night in the theatre.
00:48So it was surprising that it sold out so quickly. I did think it would sell out, maybe not so
00:54quickly, but no, I think it sounds like it's right up people's alley, which is really encouraging.
01:02And it makes you wonder all the more, how come we haven't had a Le Carre on the stage
01:06before? What do you think?
01:10I'm not sure. I think it's such a huge task to reduce what is an incredibly detailed,
01:21rich piece of literature into two hours of theatre. It's a mammoth task for any playwright
01:29to both be honourable to the novel and also to put his or her own imprint on that in a
01:35dramatic sense. Maybe people have tried in the past, I don't know, but it so happens
01:41that our playwright, David Eldridge, has come up with a really clever way of presenting
01:48the story in a very kind of theatrically dynamic way. And, of course, the Le Carre estate would
01:57have to give the thumbs up to any adaptation, and they very much were on board with what
02:03David has done.
02:04It sounds like you've got an extraordinarily dramatic character, complex character in Lemans,
02:09who is, well, you could say in the wrong job, isn't he? He's a spy who's desperate for the truth.
02:16Yeah, he's extremely good at the job that he's begun to hate. And I think a lot of people
02:24might... that might ring true for a lot of people in their professional life. But yeah,
02:33he's come to a point in his life, I think, where he's asking himself a lot of questions.
02:37Why is he doing this? Why has he done what he's done? Is it worth it anymore? And what
02:41exactly are everybody around him up to? You know, so I think that's a really nice entry
02:47point for any character to have a really kind of rich history of, you know, what they've done,
02:55where they've been, and bringing that into the present and deciding whether or not to carry on
03:01one last time.
03:02In his case, doubly complicated by the fact that he's fallen in love, which is hugely
03:07compromising, isn't it?
03:09It's very compromising for himself. It's very compromising for the person he's fallen in love
03:14with. And it's compromising for the public in general, and for the people who employ him. So
03:20there's a very interesting kind of struggle in the midst of all this kind of this murky espionage
03:25world. There's a really, really heartfelt, honest struggle that he has with, and it's a question we
03:32all ask ourselves, you know, in life is, you know, what are you prepared to do to chase love?
03:40And to realise that, and to kind of, you know, and to go with that. So yeah, there's got all
03:45these elements in his life at this moment, at a point where he just wants to let everything go
03:50and disappear, but he can't do that. He's kind of stuck with these really complex questions,
03:57and he just has to barrel through and hope to come out the other side.
04:01Fantastic. It sounds like it's going to be an absolutely enthralling evening,
04:05a sold-out run in the Minerva, the first ever Le Carre, and it's here in Chichester.
04:10Really lovely to speak to you. Thank you so much for your time.
04:14Thanks, Phil.