Play reveals what author Greene said to spy Philby
Catch Original Theatre’s hit play A Splinter of Ice on tour around the UK this summer. It is Moscow in 1987. The cold war begins to thaw and Britain’s greatest living novelist Graham Greene meets with his old MI6 boss, Kim Philby, Britain’s greatest spy … and traitor.
Under the watchful eye of Rufa, Kim’s Russian wife, the two men set about catching up on old times.
With a new world order breaking around them, how much did the writer of The Third Man know about Philby’s secret life as a spy?
Did the Red Spy Philby betray his friend as well as his country and who is listening in the next room?
From the writer and director of the award-winning West End hit play Three Days in May which inspired the Oscar-winning film Darkest Hour, Ben Brown’s coruscating new political drama explores an unlikely friendship.
Yet a friendship woven of deceit as well as loyalty.
It stars Oliver Ford Davies (Game of Thrones, Star Wars) as Graham Greene, Stephen Boxer (The Crown) as Kim Philby and Karen Ascoe as Rufa Philby.
Greene was considered one of the foremost novelists of the 20th century.
Throughout his life, Greene travelled to what he called the world’s wild and remote places.
In 1941, the travels led to his being recruited into MI6 by his sister, Elisabeth, who worked for the agency.
Accordingly, he was posted to Sierra Leone during World War Two.
Kim Philby, who would later be revealed as a Soviet agent, was Greene’s supervisor and friend at MI6.
Greene resigned from
MI6 in 1944.
Greene later wrote an introduction to Philby’s 1968 memoir, My Silent War.
As a novelist Greene wove the characters he met and the places where he lived into the fabric of his novels.
Among his most famous novels are Brighton Rock, the Honorary Consul, Our Man in Havana, The Heart of the Matter and The End of the
Affair.
His novella The Third Man was filmed with Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles for which Greene wrote the screenplay.
It is considered one of the best British films of all time.
Kim Philby was one of the most notorious of double agents betraying western secrets to the Soviet Union.
In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five.
The others were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross.
The term “Cambridge” refers to the recruitment of the group during their education at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s.
After leaving Cambridge, Philby worked as a journalist and covered the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of France.
In 1940 he began working
for the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6).
By the end of the Second World War he had become a high-ranking member.
Tour dates ...
Until Saturday June 19: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford
Monday June 21 to Saturday June 26: Theatr Clwyd, Mold
Monday June 28 to Saturday July 3: Theatre Royal, Bath
Tuesday July 6 to Saturday July 10: Theatre Royal, York
Tuesday July 13 to Saturday July 17: King’s Theatre, Edinburgh
Tuesday July 20 to Saturday July 24: Cambridge Arts Theatre
Monday July 26 to Saturday July 31: Mayflower Studios, Southampton
Tickets: https://www. originaltheatre.com/ site.