Graham Greene’s showdown with Soviet spy Kim Philby: A Splinter of Ice review

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A meeting between the writer and the double agent, once colleagues at MI6, is strong on friendship and betrayal – but takes us no closer to the heart of either man

In February 1987, the novelist Graham Greene met the Soviet spy Kim Philby for dinner. The latter had been the former’s supervisor and friend at MI6 30 years earlier, but by the time they met Philby had long been exposed as a communist double agent and was living out his retirement in Moscow.

Ben Brown’s play, directed by Alastair Whatley and Alan Strachan, imagines that reunion, and it contains the potential for a reckoning that takes in their work for MI6 as well as their friendship and betrayals. Filmed on stage by the Original Theatre Company, Michael Pavelka’s set is clean and simple – a Soviet-era drawing room that is convincingly bathed in retro shades of brown, yellow and mustard – while the action boldly relies on the power of the men’s conversation.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3e9ZPOC

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