Cell Mates Programme

BY SIMON GRAY DIRECTED BY EDWARD HALL

Based on a true story

MAIN STAGE

WHAT’S ON DRY POWDER

BY SARAH BURGESS DIRECTED BY ANNA LEDWICH STARRING HAYLEY ATWELL & TOM RILEY 26 JANUARY – 3 MARCH

CAROLINE, OR CHANGE DOWNSTAIRS

BOOK & LYRICS BY TONY KUSHNER MUSIC BY JEANINE TESORI DIRECTED BY MICHAEL LONGHURST STARRING SHARON D. CLARKE 12 MARCH – 21 APRIL

MOTHER CHRISTM AS

BY DAVID LEWIS DIRECTED BY DONNACADH O’BRIAIN 8 DECEMBER – 13 JANUARY

YOUS T WO

BY GEORGIA CHRISTOU DIRECTED BY CHELSEA WALKER 18 JANUARY – 24 FEBRUARY

ACCEP TANCE

BY AMY NG DIRECTED BY ANNA LEDWICH 2 MARCH – 7 APRIL

THE PHLEBOTOMIST

ELSEWHERE

BY ELLA ROAD 12 APRIL – 19 MAY

HAMPSTEAD THEATRE IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE BUNKER PRESENTS

KEN

BY TERRY JOHNSON DIRECTED BY LISA SPIRLING 24 JANUARY – 24 FEBRUARY | THE BUNKER

WELCOME Cell Mates is one of those unfairly disregarded plays – like The Judas Kiss and Hapgood – that is ripe to receive its first major revival at Hampstead.

The first and last production in 1995 was overshadowed by a tabloid frenzy which unfairly obscured much wonderful work as well as the play itself, which had received rather good reviews. Simon Gray always insisted it was one of his best pieces of writing and was hoping for a restorative revival right up to his untimely death in 2008.

In his lifetime Gray was mostly viewed as a ‘mainstream’ playwright of West End heritage, and only one of his plays premiered at the National Theatre, notwithstanding Peter Hall’s enthusiasm for his work. This now seems surprising, though perhaps commentators were deceived by the surface naturalism of the writing without fully appreciating how it camouflages deep and unsettling substrata of shifting meanings and emotions. Indeed, textually the plays have more in common with Pinter’s work than is usually acknowledged, which perhaps explains Pinter’s personal affection for Gray and his enthusiasm for his plays (he directed the premieres of nine of them). Thus, at one level Cell Mates operates as a spy drama, but Gray isn’t solely interested in the Cold War paraphernalia. Taking the isolated professional condition of the spy as a central metaphor, the play is also about the human condition, and our struggle to maintain our dignity and identity in the face of existential terror and the dread of loneliness. We all die alone, of course, though apparently the elderly and ailing George Blake is, to this day, still finding solace in his Cold War ideals.

And the shadow of those ideals – at least the brutal realpolitik they engendered - are evident in the chill wind that currently blows across the world from a Russia governed by an ex-KGB agent. All the hallmarks of ‘tradecraft’ are present: misinformation, leaks of selected intelligence material, blackmail and bullying – except now they are being used on a massive scale and against entire populations rather than in a covert game of cat and mouse. So Cell Mates does feel particularly pertinent - though it’s also a great yarn and I hope perfect seasonal entertainment, which we offer up with deep gratitude for your continued generosity and support.

EDWARD HALL ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

THE WILL MORTIMER INTERVIEW The following ‘responses’ to the questions I would have liked to ask the late Simon Gray about the writing of the play are excerpted from his production diary dealing with Cell Mates.

WM Tell me how you came to write the play.

SG I don’t know exactly where to begin the story of Cell Mates, unless at the beginning of the writing of it... I was in Tucson, Arizona, directing a revised (to the point of obliteration, I fear) play of mine. In the mornings, before rehearsal, I began making notes on a project commissioned by the BBC – the story of the relationship between George Blake and Sean Bourke.

WM So it was originally a BBC commission.

What was your starting point?

SG The primary source material of the play was Bourke’s The Springing of George Blake. Blake’s autobiography devotes only three pages to the springing, the escape, the years spent with Bourke, his liberator. Those three pages, blandly patronizing in their treatment (dismissal, really) of Bourke, made me so contemptuous of Blake that I constantly choked when attempting to write the many drafts and versions of the film, the radio play, the screenplay. It took me, on and off, something like five years to get close to Blake, to tolerate and even to excuse him. It was only when I realised how lonely he must have been in his perpetual and self-imprisoning secretiveness that the story assumed a shape that worked. For me, anyway.

WM So what happened with the BBC? SG When I finally produced a film script that satisfied the BBC producers, the director of our choice and myself, I was invited to an interview with the head of one of the drama departments. He sat behind his desk, cool and correct, a combination of schoolmaster and Anglican minister. He said he liked the script a lot and so did his script editor. He nodded to his script editor, a pleasant-faced woman in her thirties, who struck me as someone out of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party. She said she also liked it a lot, a lot more than most of my other work, yes, she liked it far, far better than almost anything that had appeared on the screen under my name, and she didn’t really have any reservations. Not really. The

head of the department then came rolling around the desk in his wheelchair – he had been the victim of a car accident some years back – and proclaimed that these days it didn’t matter how good the script was, what they needed was stars, yes, stars – his voice reverberating on the word as if he were talking of Christs – stars to put bums on seats. The producer, an odd, vaguely ex-European (i.e. not British) chap with a lisp and rolling foreign ‘r’s, made a counterperoration in agreement and disagreement – yes, he said, of course we needed a couple of stars, but on the other hand the story was so good that what we needed was serious actors who could do the parts, to hell with the stars, whom he agreed we needed.

The pleasant-faced script editor chipped in with some blatantly capitalist affirmations of her boss’s spiritually resonant position - ‘Get us some stars,’ she said, ‘and we’ll get the show on the screen.’ We left, the producer, the director and I, with the head of drama rolling back behind his desk, the script editor smiling placidly at the thought of another job done, another execution faultlessly executed.

WITH THE WRITER

SIMON GRAY followed, but here is – I hope – a swiftish summary.

Two very famous (though not by the BBC’s standards – one of them had been greeted as dead prey by the overlord and his script editor) actors, to whom I’d sent the play before I’d sent it to Michael, were both eager to do it, one going for Blake, the other for Bourke. I raised these names with Michael; he gave them his blessing, withdrew his blessing, interviewed them with me – we both knew them and their work very well – because he said he wanted to see what they looked like side by side, though as one was small, dark and famously handsome, the other a trifle portly, with gingery-white hair and a famously vibrant physique, we didn’t actually have to see them seated, with elbows touching, to know what they’d look like side by side.

So what was Michael really up to in organizing this unnecessary charade? My suspicion was that it expressed formally a growing uncertainty about the play itself. A suspicion that was confirmed when week by week he withdrew his blessings, first from one actor, then from the other, then from the play. He didn’t actually excommunicate so much as dither,

bow and procrastinate his way out of a situation that he’d clearly come to find embarrassing. I learned later that he’d taken advice from a couple of directors who’d pronounced the text undirectable. At least by them.

As a matter of fact, I thought they were right. They must have been because, before I’d received this news, I’d gone back to the drawing board – ‘Ah well, back to the drawing board,’ my late agent and still

WM So that was that?

SG I gave up on the BBC, feeling that the BBC had given up on writers, and this one in particular, but I didn’t, couldn’t give up on Bourke and Blake. I wanted them, no, needed them, to live in some form, if not on screen, on stage perhaps. I set about rewriting, first following the line of the film script and then, as I burrowed further into it, becoming more and more involved with the two central characters. I suddenly found myself, in order to burrow some more, going in a quite different direction, turning the play into a weird duologue in which there were two voices but four characters, Blake, Bourke, and the two tape recorders they each spoke into as they wrote their respective books.

WM So it became a play… What happened next?

SG I sent it off to Michael Codron, the producer with whom I went back some thirty years. He responded quickly – which he always does, a great virtue in a producer – and enthusiastically, which delighted me, as enthusiasm is always a producer’s greatest virtue.

The play at that time was called, by the way, Says I Says He. I won’t go into all the ins and outs of what

GEOFFREY STREATFEILD

much-lamented friend, Clive Goodwin, had said on the occasion of a resounding flop of mine at the RSC – ‘Ah well, back to the drawing board.’ Which is where I was with the play that was to become Cell Mates.

I sent it off to its next port of call, the producer Duncan Weldon, who some years ago produced a play of mine, Melon, with Alan Bates in the lead.

WM I think Alan had expressed interest in this play too?

SG Just before dispatching the play to Duncan, I sent a copy to Alan Bates, to whom I’d sent the first version, really for his observations as I knew he was unavailable in the foreseeable future. He responded to the new version by announcing that he was available at such and such a date, and was interested, though not yet ready to commit, at least not to a date. We agreed that I should suggest his name to Duncan when we met and take it from there. It would be a long delicate process, I thought, knowing Alan. He mustn’t be hurried, chivvied, let alone bullied. But the play couldn’t wait for ever.

WM That must have helped to get the commercial management on board?

SG I had my meeting with Duncan in his offices, once inhabited by Ivor Novello and known as the Ivor Novello suite. I told him the two actors I had first thought about were out of contention… so what did he think of Alan Bates, who was interested, and was usually my first thought anyway? Duncan was ecstatic. ‘Fine by me,’ he said. ‘Fine.’ He was completely happy to go ahead with the compressed version of Bourke and Blake, now called, as I remember, Says He Says He. WM But it actually had its first airing as a radio play – how did that come about?

SG Shortly after Duncan and I had this meeting... there was a phone call or a card from Jane Morgan, a director of radio dramas at the BBC. She’d done a few plays of mine with consummate professionalism – she is also a cricket fanatic, which helps our collaboration enormously. I raised the subject of Blake and Bourke.

We decided I should try my hand at converting it into a radio piece, directed by herself. I only had an hour’s transmission at my disposal – so further alterations and compressions were called for. The piece went out, still a two-hander, excellently performed by Jack Shepherd as Blake and Bill Nighy as Bourke. It was called With a Nod and a Bow and was well received, except by the Evening Standard, which rather oddly singled it out as the ‘Pick of the Day’ and then rubbished it.

WM How close was the radio version to the final version of the play?

SG For my own part, I enjoyed With a Nod and a Bow, thinking I’d got both the experience and the meaning for once. But I also thought, yes, that’s right, it’s a radio piece and I’ve done it on radio. It’s not, even yet, for the stage. The point being, I suppose, that if you can listen to the characters without feeling a need to see their faces, watch their movements, then on radio is where your play should be. So back to the drawing board. I asked Duncan to put the production on hold and started again. I did a draft with eight characters – a synthesis, really, of the film script and the last stage version – and sent it off to Duncan, who said it was fine by him, ‘God bless’. Duncan concluded every conversation with a ‘God bless’. I think that, for him, the fact that a number of starry actors wanted to do it, and that Alan Bates was ‘interested’ – more than ‘interested’ – constituted sufficient grounds for purchasing the rights, which, at about this time, he did. This version of the play, which I seem to remember was called Mr Bourke and Mr Blake, I again put a stop to, feeling that I hadn’t quite completed the process, there was a further step to be taken. The play was about there, but was both under-textured and not quite integrated. Back to the drawing board, two more drafts, three possibly, and at last I felt that I’d got it, the version I would stand by. I changed the title to Homesick, sent it off to Alan and Duncan, attempted to proceed with other work.

Duncan phoned to say that he preferred this version to the other version even, though he’d liked that version, and the two previous versions as well, let’s get on with it when we knew what Alan wanted to do, ‘God bless’. I believed that the writing part of the play was finished, although there would no doubt be changes in rehearsal. A peace stole over me, a sense that I’d come through a long stuttering labour to a birth. A birth on the page, at last.

Simon Gray later changed the title of the play to Cell Mates (‘I was adamant but brief about the change of title, adamant and brief because I couldn’t explain my preference for Cell Mates, except that I preferred it’) and directed the play himself in its only previous production, opening at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford in January 1995 before transferring to the West End. Extracts taken from Fat Chance by Simon Gray, first published by Faber and Faber in 1995.

EMMET BYRNE PHILIP BIRD

THE ODD COUPLE

BY ROGER HERMISTON

It was just before midday on Monday, 6 September 1965, during their customary daily walk together through ‘D’ Hall to the prison canteen, when George Blake felt the time had arrived to put the startling proposition to his most intimate fellow inmate.

The notorious double agent – an out and out traitor to most – was just over four years into a pitiless 42year sentence (the longest in British criminal history) for leaking some of the West’s biggest intelligence and

‘George, I don’t have to think it over’, replied Bourke.

‘I’m your man.’

The irascible Irishman and the imperturbable Dutchman. The garrulous, overweight extrovert and the ascetic, self-contained yoga aficionado. Lapsed Catholic and lapsed – now irrevocably Communist – Lutheran. There was little commonality in the background and character of Bourke and Blake to suggest the forging of a close alliance. But in the

‘THE IRASCIBLE IRISHMAN AND THE IMPERTURBABLE DUTCHMAN. THE GARRULOUS, OVERWEIGHT EXTROVERT AND THE ASCETIC, SELF-CONTAINED YOGA AFICIONADO.’ political secrets. He had hoped he might benefit from the regular currency of the Cold War, the exchange of prisoners between the two blocs, but lately had been reconciled to the fact that he was doomed to remain in Wormwood Scrubs until at least 1989, when he would be 66 – if he behaved himself.

So amid the hubbub of conversation between the assorted murderers, bank robbers, rapists and thieves as they hurried past on their way to lunch, Blake turned to Sean Bourke in a quiet corner and, after outlining his predicament, soberly, matter-of-factly confronted the Irishman: ‘I have therefore decided that the time has come for me to leave here … er … under my own steam, as it were. I am asking you, Sean, to help me escape.’

Blake knew he needed someone of initiative, courage and single-mindedness to help him break out of the Scrubs. In the 31-year-old petty criminal from Limerick, he had identified a highly intelligent, highly imaginative man, with ‘a strong sense of the dramatic, an ability to dissemble and an obsessive pride’. He was counting on Bourke’s affection for him, together with the Irishman’s deep-rooted loathing for the establishment, to persuade him to put his liberty at risk and join him in his fraught mission.

He needn’t have worried. Although Bourke had not seen this coming – ‘not the slightest hint in that smiling face over the years’ – he barely hesitated with his reply. ‘Think it over for a few days’, said Blake.

hothouse of prison life unlikely friendships bloom, and this was assuredly one of those.

Sean Alphonsus Bourke and George Blake (formerly Behar) had first encountered one another in the Scrubs four years earlier, in an English Literature class run by the extramural department of London University. Soon joining the group – having been jailed for offences committed under the Official Secrets Act – were CND campaigners Michael Randle and Pat Pottle. These two would be released after a few months, but the lively discussions the four men had over novels like E.M.Forster’s A Passage to India and poems such as Rupert Brooke’s Peace forged strong bonds. Randle and Pottle would return to the story in 1966 with crucial roles to play in Blake’s Great Escape.

Good-looking with a spring of black curly hair, a compelling conversationalist with a ferocious appetite for drink, Bourke was every Englishman’s idea of a stage Irishman. He was the sixth of seven boys whose extended family boasted a colourful collection of poets, drunks, misers, bare-knuckle fighters and general ‘wild rovers’. He himself turned out to be a reckless, feckless individual, who embarked on his career of largely minor crime from the age of twelve. A theft of a loaf and a bunch of bananas saw him ‘sentenced’ to three years in a notorious reformatory in Daingean in County Offaly, Ireland, where the priests would cow their charges

with the harshness of their words, and periodically beat them violently with their fists.

Friends would later testify that the experience of Daingean shaped the darker side of Bourke’s character – morose, truculent, menacing without being violent, seemingly tormented by myriad demons. But most of the time the Irishman was charming, witty, gregarious, mischievous, intensely loyal, a stimulating companion with a sharp and sceptical mind.

Walter Mitty-like illusions, especially over the role he played in General Haig’s army in World War One. The young Blake, despite the shifting sands of his life (at 13 he was despatched to Egypt to be educated alongside his newfound, wealthy Jewish cousins), was certain of one thing, though - that belief mattered.

Although attracted by Marxism through the influence of his elder cousin, Henri Curiel, he put religion first and nearly became a pastor in the Dutch Reformed

‘IN THE HOTHOUSE OF PRISON LIFE UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIPS BLOOM, AND THIS WAS ASSUREDLY ONE OF THOSE.’ After leaving the reformatory he had travelled to England, where he drifted from one job to another, on building sites and in factories, usually drinking far too much. He arrived in Wormwood Scrubs in 1961 to serve a seven-year sentence – his crime having been to send a bomb in a biscuit tin through the post in an unsuccessful attempt to kill a Sussex detective.

Bourke bore a venomous grudge against the officer, who he believed had been spreading rumours that he was a homosexual, which he was sure had cost him his job in a youth centre in Crawley. This episode merely stoked the anti-authority fires within him.

Yet in the Scrubs, once he had put aside his festering resentment, Bourke found an outlet for his main talent. He was a self-taught writer, fancying himself in the Irish literary tradition as a Brendan Behan type, and he was actually a second cousin of the poet Desmond O’Grady. Bourke undoubtedly had a way with words, as became clear when he edited the prison magazine, New Horizon, with some style and élan.

Despite his scarred upbringing, Bourke appeared to revel in his Irish heritage. In marked contrast, Blake’s life was shaped by confused identity and shifting loyalty.

Born in Rotterdam, Holland, to a Dutch Protestant mother and a father of Jewish-Egyptian heritage and British nationality, Blake was never quite sure where he belonged. Mother Catherine would be his rock all his life, but his father Albert – whose Jewish background was only revealed to his family on his deathbed – was a failed small businessman with

Church. Hitler put paid to that by invading Holland, and instead 17-year-old Blake became a courageous courier for the Dutch Resistance.

Imprisoned by the Germans, he made a remarkable escape across occupied France, into Spain and onwards to Britain, where he was recruited into MI6.

Although an outsider – ‘that funny foreigner’ as establishment colleagues called him, thus sowing the seeds of future resentment – his facility for languages, his taste for adventure, and his great ability to charm others propelled him up the ladder in the Secret Intelligence Service.

But by 1951 his belief was ideological rather than religious – the switch to Communism inspired initially, and ironically, by an MI6 sponsored course in Russian language and literature at Cambridge University. After being ‘turned’ by an enterprising KBG officer, Nicholas Loenko, while imprisoned in a camp in the Korean War, Blake spent the next nine years passing secrets to the Soviet Union.

What he had done - which included betraying the biggest technical operation of the Cold War, the eavesdropping Berlin Tunnel - was ‘treason’, the judge Lord Justice Parker told him at his trial, ‘one of the worst cases that could be envisaged other than in a time of war.’

Poles apart then, in background and character, but what drew Bourke and Blake together in the Scrubs, in the English literature class and beyond, was a desire for intellectual enhancement. Blake himself took an honours degree in Arabic, and O levels in the British

Constitution and Russian. He helped draft petitions to the Home Office for the semi-literates who wanted their cases reviewed, and he took French and German lessons for the younger prisoners, who held him in great esteem.

The air of serenity Blake carried around with him, given the extraordinary length of his sentence, astonished Bourke and everyone else, prisoners and guards alike. Invariably polite, unruffled and attentive towards others, he displayed the contemplative calm of a monk. As his privileges accrued, his cell took on the appearance of a Cambridge don’s tutorial room – book-lined, with an expensive Bokhara rug on the floor and a medieval print of St Paul on the wall. He was soon, as he himself described later, a member of the ‘prison aristocracy’.

Not everyone in the Scrubs fell completely under Blake’s spell. One such was 56-year-old Kenneth Hugh De Courcy, a former intelligence officer and unofficial adviser to the Duke of Windsor, a man who had moved in the shadowy passageways of power. De Courcy, known as ‘The Baron’, had been handed a seven-year sentence for forgery, perjury and fraud.

Given his extreme right-wing views, it might have been assumed that De Courcy and Blake would have little time for each other. In fact they got on famously, and De Courcy would later resist the opportunity to reveal the plot to spring Blake from jail.

But De Courcy was an extremely shrewd judge of character, and his assessment of Blake is hard to dismiss. ‘He was really three quite separate personalities. One was charming, witty, good natured and kind. The second was despairing, pessimistic, defeatist, while the third man was cruel, ruthless and without regard to personal or any other loyalty.’

In his spy’s wardrobe of disguises, Blake wore various cloaks to enable him to survive and prosper.

Whilst his relaxed charm had convinced prison staff by late 1965 that he had no intention of escaping, by that time he had slowly and carefully cultivated and manipulated the man he had cast to be his accomplice. Bourke, the perpetual rebel, was now fully prepared to make Blake his cause.

A month after their fateful exchange in ‘D’ Hall, Bourke persuaded the authorities he was now nearly ready and fit for integration into the outside world.

He won a place in a hostel beyond the prison gates – a halfway house on the road to full release – that gave

him the freedom and the time to plan Blake’s escape.

After an unsuccessful attempt to recruit Blake’s mother and sister to the cause, Bourke ploughed on alone for the best part of nine months. First, he bought a pair of two-way radios, successfully delivering one to Blake’s cell via a network of conspirators within the prison.

Next, one of those plotters, Philip Morris, a trusted ‘red band’ with freedom of movement within the Scrubs and – crucially - access to Bourke’s hostel, was able to smuggle in tools capable of breaking open the bars on the gothic windows.

Then the Irishman renewed acquaintance with Michael Randle and Pat Pottle, still campaigning for nuclear disarmament but long free from jail and now settled with jobs and families. They needed little persuasion to help Blake, raising much-needed money for Bourke to buy – amongst other things - the getaway car, a two-tone 1955 Humber Hawk.

Everything was in place for D-Day on Saturday 22 October 1966. What happened on that dark, dank evening was akin to a jailbreak out of an Ealing comedy. And Blake and Bourke’s extraordinary adventures in the subsequent months would sit well in the pages of a Len Deighton or John Le Carré novel.

‘I first met George Blake on an educational class at Wormwood Scrubs Prison. We very soon became friends.

Like everyone else at the prison, both inmates and authorities, I was deeply impressed by Blake’s charm and good manners and by his humanitarian concern for the well-being of his fellow men. So much so, that when one day in the cell block he asked me to spring him from jail, I agreed without hesitation. But when we eventually arrived in Moscow Blake very quickly began to show himself for what he really was: a ruthless traitor. I risked my liberty to save him from life-long imprisonment and he repaid me with treachery. The George Blake that we had all known at Wormwood Scrubs had never really existed. It had been an elaborate and calculated pose with a long-term objective. In Moscow, with no more reason for posing, George Blake reverted to type.’

SEAN BOURKE The Springing of George Blake Cassell & Co, 1970

Roger Hermiston is a journalist and a writer of contemporary history books including The Greatest Traitor: The Secret Lives of Agent George Blake published by Aurum Press in 2013.

GEOFFREY STREATFEILD & EMMET BYRNE

THE ESCAPE ‘I HAVE DECIDED THAT THE TIME HAS COME FOR ME TO LEAVE HERE... ER... UNDER MY OWN STEAM, AS IT WERE. I AM ASKING YOU, SEAN, TO HELP ME ESCAPE’ GEORGE BLAKE TO SEAN BOURKE 6 September 1966 22 October 1966 just before 12:00 Sean Bourke leaves the 28 Highlever Road safe house – his official residence, a bedsit a mere mile from the prison – in the getaway car and drives to Wormwood Scrubs Prison in Artillery Road for a final walkie-talkie conversation with Blake before the escape. They fix hour zero for 18:15.

16:30 Bourke returns to the bedsit and lays Blake’s new clothes on the bed, with a London A to Z, Michael Randle’s phone number in code and some coins and banknotes. He picks up a home-made knitting needles rope ladder, grabs coats and hats for himself and Blake. He then walks from the bedsit to the prison for a last reconnaissance.

17:00 He sets off in the car for Artillery road.

16:30 Inside D wing, 210 prisoners are escorted to the recreation hut for the evening’s film, leaving 108 inmates in the hall and cells, under the supervision of 2 officers. It is the quietest time of the week.

17:30 George Blake has a shower, chats with prison officer William Fletcher, brews a cup of tea and reads the Times.

18:00 Blake goes to accomplice Phil Morris’ cell on the fourth landing. Bourke and Blake talk on the walkie-talkie. On Bourke’s go-ahead, Morris goes down to the second floor landing where he dislodges the bar temporarily taped on the windows. A few minutes later, Blake squeezes through the 12”x18” window opening. He gets out and stands on the roof of a passageway 22 feet above the ground in the dark and the rain.

He lets himself slide down the tiles, gets hold of the gutter and drops to the ground. He is now in a small recess a mere 15 yards from the prison wall. The perimeter wall is patrolled by two officers who come round every twenty minutes. On the other side, Bourke is about to instruct Blake to run to the wall when a patrol car halts beside his car and he has to drive away.

18:35 Bourke comes back. A car, containing a

courting couple, is parked in his spot. He frightens them off. Cars keep driving by, Artillery Road is busier than anticipated, and escape much riskier.

18:40 Blake, desperate, has been standing in the recess for 20 minutes. The inmates are coming back from the cinema and his absence will be discovered at any moment.

18:55 Bourke has no option but to climb onto the roof of the car and throw the makeshift ladder over the wall, praying that nobody will drive by. Blake climbs the ladder easily, but, as he reaches the top of the wall, he realises that no provision has been made for climbing down. He has to jump down 20 feet.

He falls, hits his head and breaks his wrist. Bourke bundles Blake into the car and gets behind the wheel, leaving the ladder behind. He is so nervous that in the 7 minute journey, he almost runs over a family in Artillery road, then drives into the back of a car in front of him, and jumps a red light. But they are home, free.

19:43 The Deputy Governor of Wormwood Scrubs places a call to Shepherd’s Bush Police Station and reports the escape of the most dangerous British double agent. The manhunt begins...

ROPE LADDER USED BY BLAKE IN HIS ESCAPE

WORMWOOD SCRUBS PRISON Blake exited the cell block via a panel in the large window (left of shot); he slid down the sloping roof immediately in front of it and lowered himself from the gutter. He then waited by the flowerbed below for Bourke’s signal to cross the open space (right of shot) before scaling the wall (extreme right) using the rope ladder that Bourke had thrown over.

GEORGE BLAKE

SEAN BOURKE

11 November 1922 George Behar is born in Rotterdam, son of a Dutch Protestant mother and an Egyptian Jewish father, a naturalised British Subject.

1936 On his father’s death, Blake is sent to Egypt to stay with his father’s relatives and continues his education at the English School in Cairo.

1940 WWII breaks out and Blake is sent back to his family in the Netherlands.

Because of his British passport, he is interned but – being underage – he is promptly released and joins the Dutch resistance as a courier.

1942 Eager to join his family in England, Blake travels through Belgium, France, Spain and Gibraltar.

January 1943 He reaches London and is reunited with his mother and his sisters who had fled Rotterdam at the start of the war. His mother changes their name from Behar to Blake.

1944 Blake, a sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a gifted linguist of very sharp intellect, is recruited by MI6. He is employed in the Dutch Section of MI6 for the rest of the war.

1946 Posted to Hamburg to assist with the interrogation of German U-Boat captains.

1947-48 After a crash course in Russian at the University of Cambridge, Blake is posted to the British legation in Seoul. Under cover as a Vice-Consul, he is in charge of gathering intelligence on Communist North Korea, Communist China and the Soviet Far East.

1950 Blake and other British Diplomats are taken prisoner by North Korea.

It is during his 3 years detention that Blake becomes a communist and volunteers to work for the KGB. 1953 Blake is released and receives a hero’s welcome on his return to Britain.

1955 He is sent to work as a case officer in Berlin where his task is to recruit Soviet officers as double agents. He informs the KGB of the details of British and American operations, including Operation Gold – a tunnel in East Berlin used to tap Soviet Military telephone lines. In the course of 9 years, it is estimated that Blake betrayed around 40 agents, destroying most of MI6’s operations in Eastern Europe.

1959 Blake becomes aware of a Central Intelligence Agency mole inside GRU, and is instrumental in exposing P. S. Popov, who is executed by the Russians in 1960.

1961 Blake falls under suspicion from his colleagues after revelations

by Polish defector Michael Goleniewski and others. Under interrogation, Blake denies he was tortured or blackmailed by the North Koreans.

Unthinkingly, he states that he switched sides voluntarily and then gives his MI6 interrogators a full confession.

May 1961 Blake is condemned to 41 years in jail.

22 October 1966 he escapes from Wormwood Scrubs Prison and flees to Moscow where he still lives today.

1934 Sean Bourke is born in Limerick into a large family, a cousin of Actor Richard Harris and of Poet Desmond O’Grady.

October 1947 Aged 12, Bourke is sentenced to three years in Daingean reformatory for stealing bananas from a lorry.

1950 Bourke moves to England when he is released from Daingean and for a few years he is frequently in trouble with the law.

1955 to 1961 Bourke settles down and works first as a builder, eventually graduating to the wages office of a local factory.

1961 he is sentenced to 7 years in jail for sending an explosive device through the post to a Detective Constable against whom he bears a grudge. The bomb explodes, but causes no injury. While in Wormwood Scrubs prison, he founds and edits the prison magazine. He befriends George Blake, and also meets fellow prisoners, the anti-nuclear campaigners Randle and Pottle.

Early December 1965 Bourke is released from prison.

22 October 1966 Bourke helps Blake escape from Wormwood Scrubs.

The police soon identifies Bourke as main suspect and a manhunt for him starts both in England and Ireland.

19 December 1966 George Blake is delivered to East Berlin.

7 January 1967 Bourke arrives in Moscow with the intention of lying low for a few months until the dust settles in Britain. Almost immediately, Bourke moves into Blake’s flat, finds a job with as an editor checking English translations, and is granted an allowance of 300 roubles a month by the KGB. For the next 22 months Bourke is prevented from leaving for different reasons by the KGB, or so he is given to understand...

22 October 1968 Bourke returns to Ireland.

31st October 1968 Bourke is arrested in Dublin where an order was made under the Extradition Act of 1965 for him to be delivered to the British Special Branch in connection with his helping Blake to escape from jail. He is released on bail.

Spring 1969 the original manuscript of The Springing of George Blake, from which the entire final section dealing with Bourke’s experience in Russia has been redacted, is returned to Bourke’s solicitor in Dublin by the Russians. The rest of the manuscript has been censored in Blake’s own hand.

1970 Publication of The Springing of George Blake. In the published version Bourke has rewritten and reinserted the redacted sections.

1973 The Irish Supreme Court rules that Bourke's abetting Blake's escape falls within the Political Offence Exception to Ireland's extradition laws.

1973-1982 He writes a few articles but rapidly spends the money given to him by the Soviet Union and his supporters. Some is squandered on alcohol, some given away. He ends up almost penniless, living in a caravan in Kilkee and suffering increasingly from alcohol-related health problems.

1982 He collapses and dies in the street from coronary thrombosis. Former KGB officer Oleg Kalugin alleges that Bourke's death was the result of KGB poisoning.

1922 –

1934 – 1982

PHILIP BIRD & DANNY LEE WYNTER CARA HORGAN & DANNY LEE WYNTER

EMMET BYRNE

‘Sean had neither the ideological commitment to Soviet society nor the imperative need to adapt to it which I had. I knew I would have to spend a great part, and possibly all of my life in this country, and was intent therefore from the outset on looking on the positive side of things and making the best of it... Sean’s approach was not unnaturally quite the opposite. He had been reluctant to come here in the first place and wanted to leave again as soon as possible. He was determined from the start not to like it here and latched on to everything negative which could confirm him in his intention. For this I could not and did not blame him.’

GEORGE BLAKE No Other Choice Jonathan Cape, 1990

PHILIP BIRD & GEOFFREY STREATFEILD DANNY LEE WYNTER & GEOFFREY STREATFEILD

CARA HORGAN & EMMET BYRNE

SIMON GRAY

EDWARD HALL

Simon was educated at Portsmouth Grammar and Westminster Schools, and moved back to Canada at 17 to attend Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Trinity College, Cambridge, followed, before he was appointed lecturer in English at Queen Mary College, University of London. His first novel, Colmain, written while he was at Cambridge, was published by Faber & Faber in 1963. Adapting his short story, The Caramel Crisis for television kicked off a new career as a dramatist.

Other television plays followed, for the BBC’s Wednesday Play and Play for Today, frequently in collaboration with the producer Kenith Trodd.

He began to write for live stage when his play Wise Child was considered too shocking for television. It starred Simon Ward and Alec Guinness and was produced

by Michael Codron at Wyndham’s Theatre in 1967.

His 1971 play Butley, also produced by Michael Codron, began a long creative partnership with Harold Pinter as director (of both the play and the film versions) and continued the partnership with the actor Alan Bates, begun with Gray’s 1967 television play Death of a Teddy Bear. Bates starred in 11 of Gray’s works, while Pinter directed 10 separate productions of Gray’s works for stage, film, and television, beginning with Butley. Their final collaboration was a stage production of The Old Masters, starring Peter Bowles and Edward Fox, in 2004.

Robert McCrum, an editor at Faber, suggested in 1984 that Gray kept a diary when he was working with Harold Pinter on The Common Pursuit, staged at the Lyric, Hammersmith. This was the first of eight volumes of diaries. In 2003 Ian Jack, then editor of Granta, asked what Gray had done in his holidays. The result was the acclaimed trilogy, The Smoking Diaries, which brought him a new and appreciative audience.

His last diary, Coda, was published posthumously in November 2008.

With fellow playwright Hugh Whitemore, Gray adapted his Diaries for the stage.

The Last Cigarette, starring Felicity Kendal, Nicholas Le Prevost and Jasper Britton and directed by Richard Eyre, was staged in 2009.

In March 2009, Harry Burton marshalled a constellation of British acting talent to pay tribute to Gray in Simon Gray: A Celebration at the Comedy Theatre, in London.

Gray married Beryl in 1965, and they had two children, Ben and Lucy.

The marriage was dissolved. In 1997 Gray married Victoria. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 for services to drama and literature. He died on 7th August 2008 at the age of 71.

As Artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre his productions include Filthy Business; Rabbit Hole; Wonderland; Sunny Afternoon (also Harold Pinter Theatre/UK tour); Raving; Chariots of Fire (also West End); No Naughty Bits; Loyalty; Enlightenment and Firebird (Hampstead Downstairs/Trafalgar Studios).

As Artistic Director of Propeller, productions have included Rose Rage (adapted from Henry VI, I, II & III); Henry V; The Winter’s Tale; The Taming of the Shrew; Twelfth Night; The Merchant of Venice; Richard III; A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy of Errors.

His Propeller work has toured worldwide, played the West End and Broadway (as well as regular seasons at Hampstead Theatre) and has won numerous Awards both in the UK and overseas.

Other theatre work includes Once in a Lifetime with David Suchet (National Theatre); A Streetcar Named Desire with Natasha Richardson (Roundabout, New York); A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (National Theatre); Mark Ravenhill’s Dick Whittington (Barbican); Calico (Duke of York’s); Edmond with Kenneth Branagh (National Theatre); Two Men of Florence (Huntingdon, Boston); Macbeth with Sean Bean (Albery); The Constant Wife (Apollo); Julius Caesar (RSC); Tantalus (Denver Centre and UK tour); Henry V (RSC); The Deep Blue Sea (Vaudeville) and The Two Gentleman of Verona (RSC).

Television work includes The Durrells; Partners in Crime, a six part series for the BBC; Restless; Downton Abbey; Strike Back; Spooks; Kingdom; Trial and Retribution; Miss Marple - Sleeping Murder; Cutting Edge: Safari Strife and Richard III.

WRITER

DIRECTOR

ACT I SCENE I

WORMWOOD SCRUBS, LONDON, LATE SUMMER 1965

SCENE II

A BEDSIT IN LONDON, OCTOBER 22ND 1966

SCENE III

A FLAT IN MOSCOW, THREE WEEKS LATER

ACT II SCENE I

THE FLAT IN MOSCOW, SIX MONTHS LATER

SCENE II

THE SAME, THREE MONTHS LATER

SCENE III

THE SAME, SIX WEEKS LATER

CAST IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE EMMET BYRNE

SEAN BOURKE

GEOFFREY STREATFEILD

GEORGE BLAKE

DANNY LEE WYNTER

PHILIP/VIKTOR

CARA HORGAN

MIRANDA/ZINAIDA

PHILIP BIRD

SPARROW/STAN

CREATIVE TEAM SIMON GRAY

WRITER DIRECTOR

EDWARD HALL

DESIGNER

MICHAEL PAVELKA RICK FISHER

LIGHTING DESIGNER

JOHN LEONARD

SOUND DESIGNER

SIMON SLATER

COMPOSER

RICHARD RYDER

DIALECT COACH

MILA ALIEVA

RUSSIAN LANGUAGE COACH

LARISA LAVINSKAIA

RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS

SUZANNE CROWLEY & GILLY POOLE

CASTING DIRECTORS

MILLI BHATIA

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

ALISON RITCHIE

PRODUCTION MANAGER

JAN BENCH

COSTUME SUPERVISOR COMPANY STAGE MANAGER

MICHAEL DENNIS

DEPUTY STAGE MANAGER

REBECCA JAMES IMOGEN FIRTH

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER STAGE MANAGEMENT PLACEMENT

EMILY ROSE-LAWRENCE VICTORIA HITCHENS

WARDROBE MANAGER REHEARSAL & PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHER

MARC BRENNER CAPITAL SCENERY

SET BUILDERS

HAMPSTEAD THEATRE WOULD LIKE TO THANK JOHN GRAINGER at www.camadclassicvanandweddingcarhire.co.uk PAVEL DOREULI MARK NEWMAN

FOR EXCLUSIVE INFORMATION, NEWS & COMPETITIONS @Hamps_Theatre #HTCellMates

hampsteadtheatre

MAKE UP PROVIDED BY Cell Mates has been kindly supported by the Godwin Family

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CAST & CREATIVE TEAM PHILIP BIRD SPARROW/STAN Previous work at Hampstead Theatre includes Labyrinth; Sunny Afternoon (also Harold Pinter); Sweet Panic (also Duke of York’s); Curtains (also Whitehall) and The Hard Shoulder (also Aldwych).

Other theatre work includes The Merry Wives of Windsor; As You Like It; A New World; The Merchant of Venice; Holding Fire!; The Winter’s Tale and Troilus and Cressida (all Shakespeare’s Globe); The Potsdam Quartet (Jermyn Street Theatre); Abigail’s Party (Whitehall); Wild Oats (Bristol Old Vic); The Cherry Orchard (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh); In the Club (National tour); Two Weeks with the Queen (Scarborough/National Theatre); Noises Off (Savoy) and The Comedy of Errors (Manchester Royal Exchange). Philip was nominated for an Olivier Award for his performance in Good Rockin’ Tonight (Strand/ Prince of Wales).

Film work includes Blessed; Imagine Me and You; Virtual Sexuality; Killing Joe and Caught in the Act. Television work includes Emerald City; Midsomer Murders; My Shakespeare; EastEnders; The Fades; Casualty; My Family; Diamond Geezer; Doctors; The Worst Christmas of my Life; Into the Void; Silent Witness; Murder City; Feather Boy; The Glass; Coronation Street; The Wild House and Northanger Abbey.

Radio work includes When the Dog Dies and Something Understood.

EMMET BYRNE SEAN BOURKE Theatre work includes Angela’s Ashes (tour of Ireland); Breaking Dad; Big Maggie and Borstal Boy (all Gaiety, Dublin); Enjoy (Rough Magic); By the Bog of Cats (Abbey, Dublin); Eight Women and Ciaran’s Aisling (both Smock Alley); Tic Tac (Gumption Theatre); Midsummer (A Play With Songs) (Lir Academy); Breathing Corpses (Nun’s Island); Measure For Measure (Black Box Theatre, Galway); Spring Awakening: The Musical (Town Hall Theatre); Romeo and Juliet and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (both BOI Theatre).

Film work includes Twice Shy; Mute (short film);

69 & Dead (short film); Adam (short film) and Gravediggers (short film).

Television work includes Striking Out (series 1 & 2); Red Rock; Burning Wishes and 1916 Seachtain Na Casca.

CARA HORGAN MIRANDA/ZINAIDA Theatre work includes The Mother (Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath); Secret Theatre (Lyric Hammersmith); The School For Scandal (Barbican); Far Away (Bristol Old Vic); Pains of Youth (National Theatre); The House of Special Purpose (Chichester Festival Theatre) and Hedda Gabler (Gate).

Film work includes Disobedience; The Death of Stalin; The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas; The Libertine and Boat.

Television work includes Midsomer Murders; Common People; Le Grand (Aka Cop In Paris); A Young Doctor’s Notebook; Law and Order; Waking the Dead; Lewis; Ladies and Gentlemen; Peep Show; Fallen Angel; Jane Eyre; Green Wing (Series 2); The Romantics; Afterlife and The Rotter’s Club.

Television work includes The Miniaturist; Prime Suspect 1973; The Hollow Crown; New Worlds; The Thick of It; Spooks; Endeavour; Above Suspicion; Point of Rescue; Ashes to Ashes; Hunter; Elizabeth I; 20,000 Streets Under the Sky; Midsomer Murders; The Other Boleyn Girl; Love in a Cold Climate and Sword of Honour.

DANNY LEE WYNTER PHILIP/VIKTOR Theatre work includes Forty Years On (Chichester Festival Theatre); Deathwatch (The Print Room); The Glass Menagerie (Nuffield Southampton); Much Ado About Nothing (Old Vic); St John’s Night (Jermyn Street); Comus; Bedlam; Henry IV: Part I & II; King Lear and The Frontline (all Shakespeare’s Globe); The Miser (Manchester Royal Exchange); Karamazoo and Fairytale Heart (both Trafalgar Studios) and The Changing Room (Royal Court).

Film work includes Hot Fuzz.

Television work includes Walliams and Friend; The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth; Partners in Crime;

Holby City; Mr Stink; Episodes; Beat Girl; Luther; Joe’s Palace; Capturing Mary and Trial & Retribution (XI).

MICHAEL PAVELKA DESIGNER Propeller World tours include A Midsummer Night’s Dream (also Comedy - Winner TMA Best Touring Production 2003); The Merchant of Venice (2009 TMA Award Best Set Design); Richard III; The Comedy of Error; Rose Rage (Also Haymarket/Chicago Shakespeare Theater/Duke Street Theater, NY - Best Costume Design, Jeff Awards Nomination); Twelfth Night (also OId Vic) and The Taming of the Shrew (also Old Vic).

Other theatre work includes Funny Girl (Savoy/UK tour); The Go-Between (West Yorkshire Playhouse/ Apollo - Best Musical 2012 UK Theatre Award); The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare’s Globe); Twelve Angry Men (Garrick); The Hanging Gardens (Abbey, Dublin); Death of a Salesman (Gate, Dublin); Absurd Person Singular (Garrick); A Few Good Men (Haymarket); The Year of the Rat (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Twelfth Night (Seattle Repertory Theatre); Edmond (National Theatre); Macbeth (Albery); Off the Wall (Royal Festival Hall/Stan Won’t Dance); Henry V;

GEOFFREY STREATFEILD GEORGE BLAKE Work for the National Theatre includes Ivanov; The Seagull; The Beaux Stratagem; Children of the Sun; Earthquakes in London; Pains of Youth; The History Boys and Bacchai.

Work for the RSC include Henry V; Henry IV: Part I & II; Henry VI: Part I, II & III and Richard III. Other theatre work includes Wild Honey (Hampstead Theatre); My Night with Reg (Donmar/ West End); Macbeth and Copenhagen (both Sheffield Crucible); Eigengrau and The Contingency Plan (both Bush); Journey’s End (West End); Nathan the Wise and The Merchant of Venice (both Chichester Festival Theatre) and Mountain Language (Royal Court).

Film work includes Kursk; Making Noise Quietly; The Lady in the Van; Girls Night Out; Spooks: The Greater Good; Rush; Private Peaceful; City Slacker; Angel; Matchpoint and Kinky Boots.

PHILIP BIRD

Two Gentlemen of Verona; Julius Caesar and The Odyssey (all RSC); Other People’s Money and The Constant Wife (both Lyric); Mother Courage and Her Children (National Theatre of Uganda/Kennedy Center Washington DC/Grahamstown Festival RSA); The Life of Galileo (Manchester Library Theatre Company Winner Best Design Manchester Evening News); Holiday (Old Vic) and Blues in the Night (Donmar/ Piccadilly/Minetta Lane, NY).

RICK FISHER LIGHTING DESIGNER Born in Philadelphia, Rick Fisher was winner of two Olivier Awards for Best Lighting Design and two Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Billy Elliot and An Inspector Calls (Broadway).

Previous work at Hampstead Theatre includes Filthy Business; Rabbit Hole; Sunny Afternoon (also West End); Drawing the Line; Raving; Old Money; 55 Days; The Judas Kiss and Chariots of Fire (both also West End); Farewell to the Theatre; No Naughty Bits; Tiger Country; The Fastest Clock in the Universe and Anna in the Tropics.

Other theatre work includes What’s in a Name (Birmingham Rep); Consent and Waste (both National Theatre); Peter Pan and Porgy and Bess (both Regent’s Park); The Herd (Bush); Fobidden City (Esplanade, Singapore); The Audience (Gielgud/Broadway); The Merchant of Venice (RSC/Almeida); The King and I and Sweeney Todd (both Châtelet, Paris); Tribes (Royal Court); Billy Elliot, the Musical (West End/Australia/ Broadway/US tours); An Inspector Calls (West End/ UK tour) and Othello (Singapore).

Recent opera work includes Oscar; The Daughter of the Regiment; Rigoletto; Salome and The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein (all Santa Fe Opera) and Turandot (ENO).

Dance work includes Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake (London/Los Angeles/Broadway/World tour).

JOHN LEONARD SOUND DESIGNER John has written an acclaimed guide to theatre sound, is the recipient of Drama Desk, LDI Sound Designer of the Year and USITT Distinguished Career Awards, is a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and an Honorary Fellow of The Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts.

CARA HORGAN

Recent theatre work includes Duet for One (Birmingham Rep/UK tour); The Real Thing (Theatre Royal, Bath/UK tour); The Firm (Hampstead Downstairs); The Retreat (Park Theatre); The Stepmother (Minerva studio, Chichester Festival Theatre); Mad Man Sad Woman (Head For Heights at The Space); Carmen (Grange Festival); All Our Children (Jermyn Street); Consent; Waste; Detroit; Grief; Untold Stories: Cocktail Sticks; 2000 Years; England People Very Nice; Much Ado About Nothing; London Assurance and Rocket to the Moon (all National Theatre); The Heresy of Love (RSC); The Dark Earth and The Light Sky; The Master Builder and Little Eyolf (all Almeida); Ghosts (Almeida/West End/New York); Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Bristol Old Vic); Into the Woods (Manchester Royal Exchange); The BFG (Birmingham Rep); Birthday and Tribes (both Royal Court); Prism; Ken; Lawrence After Arabia; Stevie and Farewell to the Theatre (all Hampstead Theatre) and Mr Foote’s Other Leg (Hampstead Theatre/Haymarket).

SIMON SLATER COMPOSER Simon has composed original music for over 300 theatre, film, television and radio productions.

Work at Hampstead Theatre includes Filthy Business; Wonderland; Raving; No Naughty Bits; Enlightenment (composer); Chariots of Fire; Wonderland and Wild Honey (as actor).

Recent theatre work includes Amadeus (National Theatre); King Lear (Shakespeare’s Globe); Constellations (Duke of York’s/Royal Court/New York Olivier Award nomination Best Sound Design); Carmen Disruption (Almeida); The Cherry Orchard; Killology; A Doll’s House (Sherman, Cardiff/Royal Court); Speech and Debate (Trafalgar Studios); Talking Heads (Theatre Royal, Bath/UK tour); A Winter’s Tale; The Broken Heart and Tis Pity She’s a Whore (all Shakespeare’s Globe); Great Expectations (Vaudeville); Octagon (Arcola - Off West End award nomination); Single Spies (Rose, Kingston); Land of Our Fathers and A Handful of Stars (both Trafalgar Studios/Theatre503 - 2 Off WestEnd Awards nominations); Cannibals (Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Two Men of Florence (Huntington Theatre, Boston); Romeo and Juliet; Henry V and Julius Caesar (all RSC); Macbeth (Albery) and Rose Rage (Shakespeare Theatre, Chicago/ Duke Theatre, New York).

Television work includes Inquisition; Dalziel & Pascoe (2 series) and Impact Earth.

Radio work includes the award winning The Blood Libel; Eight Days in July; The Look of Life and The Report.

RICHARD RYDER DIALECT COACH Richard Ryder has worked in the voice departments of the National Theatre and RSC. He has released an accent app for actors called ‘The Accent Kit’, a free download for iPhone and android.

Work at Hampstead Theatre includes iHO; Race and Hysteria.

Other theatre work includes Glengarry Glen Ross (Playhouse); Labour of Love (Noel Coward); Desire Under the Elms (Sheffield Crucible); Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Palace); Red Velvet and The Entertainer (both Garrick); Kinky Boots (Adelphi); East is East (UK tour); Outside Mullingar (Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal, Bath); The Invisible Hand (Tricycle); Clybourne Park (Mercury, Colchester); The Elephant Man and Fatal Attraction (both Haymarket); The Duck House and Uncle Vanya (both Vaudeville); A View From The Bridge; King Charles III and Barking in Essex (all Wyndham’s); Ah, Wilderness! and A Streetcar Named Desire (both Young Vic); The Winslow Boy (Old Vic).

Work at the National Theatre includes Our Country’s Good; People, Places and Things; Jane Eyre; Waste; A Taste of Honey; NT 50 Years on Stage; Emil and the Detectives; Home; Untold Stories; This House; Port; Cocktail Sticks and Hymn.

Film work includes Set Fire to the Star; The Lady in the Van and Holmes and Watson (2018).

SUZANNE CROWLEY & GILLY POOLE CASTING DIRECTORS Work at Hampstead Theatre includes Prism; Filthy Business; Sex with Strangers; Labyrinth; Lawrence After Arabia; Reasons to be Happy; Rabbit Hole; Matchbox Theatre; Wonderland; Sunny Afternoon; Drawing the Line; Rapture, Blister, Burn; Chariots of Fire; No Naughty Bits; Enlightenment; .45; Beasts and Beauties and Tiger Country.

Other theatre work includes Journey’s End (Duke of York’s); Twelfth Night (Albery); Broken Glass (Tricycle/ West End); The Great Game; Women, Power and Politics; Not Black and White; Playboy of the West

Indies; Two Trains Running; The Piano Lesson; A Love Song for Ulster; The Stephen Lawrence Enquiry; The Nuremberg Trials; Bloody Sunday and The Hutton Enquiry (all Tricycle); Ruined; Reasons To Be Pretty and Becky Shaw (both Almeida).

Film work includes Urban Hymn; The Walker; Titanic; Conspiracy; A Knight’s Tale; Tomorrow La Scala; Redtails and Bhaji on the Beach.

Television work includes Killing Eve; The White Princess; The Durrells (2 series); Partners in Crime; The White Queen; Spooks (7 series); Outnumbered (5 series); The Sculptress; Life Isn’t All Ha Ha Hee Hee; Indian Summers (2 series); New Worlds; Not Only But Always; Whitechapel; The Last Weekend; Case Sensitive; Nicholas Nickleby; Kingdom; Trollied; Generation Kill (Emmy nomination); Hunted; Episodes; Five Days and Tsunami: The Aftermath.

MILLI BHATIA ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Trained on the MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck, and was previously Resident Director at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. She is a Creative Associate at the Gate Theatre and an Associate Artist at the Bush Theatre.

Previous Assistant Director work at Hampstead Theatre includes Filthy Business and Luna Gale.

Other Assistant Director work includes Lions and Tigers (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse); What Shadows (Birmingham Rep); The Quiet House (Birmingham Rep/Park Theatre) and The Government Inspector (Birmingham Rep/tour).

Associate Director work includes What If Women Ruled The World? (Manchester International Festival).

Director work includes I Have Aids (Jerwood Director’s Programme, Young Vic); The Hijabi Monologues; My White Best Friend and This Bitter Earth (all Bush); EmpowerHouse (Theatre Royal Stratford East); No Cowboys Only Indians (Courtyard); Mother India and Three Wheels On The Wagon (both Birmingham Rep), Old Taps and Better Days (both RADA 100).

DANNY LEE WYNTER & PHILIP BIRD EMMET BYRNE & GEOFFREY STREATFEILD

HAMPSTEAD THEATRE IN 2016/17 PUBLIC DEMAND

BEYOND NW3

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OF BOOKERS LIVE OUTSIDE OF NW POSTCODE

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£400,000

OLIVIER AWARD WINNER

117,876 TICKETS SOLD 9% INCREASE ON PREVIOUS YEAR

0 2015/16

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ACE Revenue Grant

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64k

SCARLETT CO-PRODUCTION WITH THEATR CLWYD, WALES

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13

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THE HISTORY OF HAMPSTEAD THEATRE Hampstead Theatre was founded in 1959 by James Roose Evans and was initially based in a church hall in Hampstead Village. New plays formed the core of the repertory from the very beginning and the first season included successful premieres of Pinter’s The Room and The Dumb Waiter. In 1962 the theatre moved to the 157 seat prefabricated building at Swiss Cottage which was to be its home for over 40 years. The programme mix was much the same as it is now: occasional revivals (a 1963 production of Private Lives doing much to restore Noel Coward’s reputation) supporting a diverse repertory of new plays and UK premieres of American work.

During its first decade, the theatre existed without any subsidy, making it dependent on Box Office revenue, philanthropic support and revenue from transfers. Accordingly, the diverse range of Hampstead’s work developed a particular character, with intellectual challenge balanced by a significant entertainment component. This contrasted with the work of its near contemporary institution, The Royal Court, where greater financial support granted greater license for experiment. The institutions have both remained true to their heritages and Hampstead’s always close relationship with the commercial theatre has led to a surprisingly high number of West End transfers and tours.

Once established, Hampstead supported the careers of a number of notable writers. Three plays by David Hare (including his first play, Slag) premiered here; there were premieres of three plays by Michael Frayn, four plays by Mike Leigh (including Abigail’s Party), two plays by Terry Johnson, five plays by Philip Ridley, two plays by Stephen Jeffreys, and the return of Harold Pinter with the premiere of The Hothouse. Alongside these there were UK premieres of plays by Tennessee Williams (one also a World premiere), three Frank McGuinness plays, four Brian Friel plays, and plays by Athol Fugard, David Mamet and Tony Kushner. Other notable world premieres included Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man and Dennis Potter’s only play Sufficient Carbohydrate.

Inevitably this repertory attracted some of the finest creative and acting talent available. Amongst others the tiny Hampstead stage attracted artists as diverse as Ian McKellen, Leonard Rossiter, Jude Law, Zoe Wanamaker,

Faye Dunaway, Ian Holm, Susan Hampshire, Albert Finney, Eileen Atkins, Ewan McGregor, Harriet Walter, Alan Rickman, Nigel Hawthorne, Elaine Stritch, Frances de la Tour, John Hurt, Penelope Keith, Billie Whitelaw, John Malkovich, Sheila Hancock, David Suchet, Juliet Stephenson, Timothy Spall, Maureen Lipman and many others.

In 2003, with the prefab becoming increasingly dilapidated, a National Lottery grant and the generosity of the local community enabled Hampstead to create its current state-of-the-Art premises. But adjustment to this new home proved unexpectedly difficult both financially and artistically: the much loved but tatty old auditorium was less than half the size of the luxurious new Main House. Accordingly, a very different approach to play selection and production was required, and the early years proved challenging. In 2010 a comprehensive rethink of the business model was initiated, reducing overhead, investing more money onstage, and starting to present professional productions in the downstairs Studio for the first time.

The new model rapidly yielded results and notable recent successes have included World premieres of four Howard Brenton plays including 55 Days, Drawing the Line and #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, David Hare’s The Moderate Soprano, Mike Bartlett’s adaptation of Chariots of Fire and his Wild, Beth Steel’s Wonderland and Labyrinth – as well as Hampstead’s first large scale musical, Sunny Afternoon. UK premieres of American plays have included David Mamet’s Race, Gina Gionfriddo’s Rapture, Blister, Burn, David Lindsay Abaire’s Good People and Rabbit Hole, Tony Kushner’s iHo and Branden Jacob Jenkins’ Gloria.

There have been revivals of plays by Stoppard, Frayn, Hare and Terry Johnson.

And Hampstead Downstairs has, since 2010, given World premieres to over 40 plays (many of which have gone on to other stages) whilst Hampstead has transferred eight of its Main Stage productions to the West End. Whilst now operating an unique commercial/funded model at a scale and prominence unimaginable in those early days in the church hall, Hampstead Theatre continues to honour its early creative values, as well as respecting the rich heritage that it has created in the course of its 50-year history.

For more archive photos, please visit our History wall in the lower foyer of the theatre.

Laura Rees, In The Vale of Health: Michael 2014 Ned Derrington, John Dagleish, Lillie Flynn and George Maguire, Sunny Afternoon 2014 James McArdle and Tam Williams, Chariots of Fire 2012

Gethin Anthony, In The Vale of Health: Japes 2014 Jamie Ballard and Laura Rees, In The Vale of Health: Japes 2014 Sara Kestelman, Filthy Business 2017

BE A PATRON

PATRONS & SUPPORTERS INDIVIDUALS

Building on its rich history, Hampstead Theatre is renowned for original, entertaining and ambitious work. We aim to move theatre forward with new ideas, talent and energy to excite our audiences with the lateral, the fresh and the unexpected. Sell-out hits, West End transfers and Olivier Awardwinning triumphs originate with us and will continue to do so thanks to philanthropic support.

Our Patrons’ contribution is vital, and in turn they enjoy a range of benefits which bring them closer to the Theatre they love. These include very popular pre-show receptions and post-show discussions with the cast for every production on our two stages, complimentary tickets and programmes, and backstage tours.

For more information about being a Patron please contact the Development team on 020 7449 4155, development@hampsteadtheatre.com or visit hampsteadtheatre.com/support-us

Daon Broni & Fenella Woolgar in THE SLAVES OF SOLITUDE

Creative Benefactors Anonymous Celia & Edward Atkin CBE Veronica & Lars Bane Kurt & Paivi Björklund Martin Byman & Peggy Samson Sir Trevor & Lady Chinn Lin & Ken Craig Barbara & Mick Davis Simon & Claire Godwin Andrew & Marina Newington Simon & Midge Palley Maarten & Taina Slendebroek Katja & Nicolai Tangen Mary Ellen & Tom Wanty Mattias Westman Standing Ovation Celia & Edward Atkin CBE Alexander Graham James Sellar Encore Eric Abraham Tania Black Sir Trevor & Lady Chinn The John S Cohen Foundation The George Colman Charitable Trust Ros & Alan Haigh Madeleine Hodgkin Selina & David Marks Davide & Anna Serra David Tyler & Margaret Fingerhut Opening Night Jocelyn Abbey & Tom Carney Anonymous Russ & Linda Carr Bell Cohen Charitable Trust Scott Delman Dr Natalie Greenwold Lady Rayne Sue & Tony Rosner David Sigall Roland & Sarah Turnill Claire Tremeer & Bob Reichert Sarah Williams Preview 1001 Nights Productions Ltd Heather Acton Bob Ainscow Anonymous Kay & Jim Ashton Liz & Mark Astaire Lucy Astor Eric & Jean Beecham Charitable Trust Ann & Neil Benson James & Melissa Bethell Pauline & Brian Binstock Niall Booker Katie Bradford Dorothy & John Brook Gillian & Tom Budd Jules & Cheryl Burns Barry & Deborah Buzan Paul & Rachel Campbell Lord & Lady Carlile Paul & Fiona Cartwright Richard & Robin Chapman Dr John L Collins & Mrs Isabel C H Collins Meera Cortesi David Dutton Estates & Agency Holdings Limited Michael Frayn Arnold Fulton Jackie & Michael Gee Jacqueline & Jonathan Gestetner Andrew Harrington & Susan Schoenfeld Harrington Claudia & Christopher Harris Sir Michael & Lady Heller Yew Weng Ho & Gordon Lewis Tracy Hofman Hollick Family Charitable Trust Sara Holmes-Woodhead Zmira & Rodney Hornstein John Hyatt Andrew & Elizabeth Jeffreys Adam Jones Jean-Charles & Luce Julien

Ralph & Patricia Kanter Dr Costas Kaplanis Julie Kaya & Paul Smith Ian & Deborah Kelson Nicola Kerr Varvara Kjallgren Sarah Kleiman Janet Langdon Melvin & Jackie Lawson Wilson & Mabel Lee J Leon Charitable Fund Claudia & Richard Leslie Karen & Lawrence Lever Caroline Macdonald & David Simmons Alan Maclean Alexandra Marks CBE Julia & Julian Markson Philip Marsden Mark & Cassy Martell Elizabeth & Ashley Mitchell Catherine & Garry Monaghan Diana & Allan Morgenthau Andrew & Jennifer Morris Hugh O'Donnell & Vivienne De Courcy Ellie & Philip Olmer Alison & Simon Parry-Wingfield Ian & Karen Paul Helen Payne & Matthew Greenburgh Penny & Richard Peskin Michael & Livia Prior The Raven Charitable Trust Michaela Rees Jones Kathleen Roberts Sir David & Lady Scholey Barry Serjent Sophie & David Shalit Bhags Sharma Philip & Janice Silvert Lucy & Joe Smouha Margo & Nicholas Snowman OBE Josh & Vivienne Spoerri Estelle Spottiswoode Josi & Alan Steinfeld QC William & NanDee Stockler Robert & Patricia Swannell Peter Tausig Tobyn & Sam Thomas Marina Vaizey Rob & Laura Wallace Carole & David Warren Simon & Charlotte Warshaw Melissa Jean Woodside Sir Clive & Lady Woodward Hilda & Marc Worth Dress Rehearsal Anonymous George Anson Pauline & Daniel Auerbach Graham & Michelle Barber Maggie Barnes Lisa & Andrew Barnett Ian Bell Ben-Levi Family Lisa & Robi Bernberg The Beryls Miriam & Richard Borchard Molly Borthwick Clive & Rosalind Boxer Rene Branton-Saran Catharine Browne Steven & Miriam Bruck The Cheruby Trust Maureen Clark-Darby Lord & Lady Collins of Mapesbury Mr & Mrs Leigh Collins Simone Collins Edward Cooke Katie Cooper Derek Councell & Jenny Dover Allan & Sylvia Cowen Lynette & Robert Craig Mark Dennis QC & Christabel Dennis Kate Donaghy Nicky Douglas Robyn Durie Sally & Steven Dyson Judith Farbey & Prabhat Vaze Françoise Findlay Gail & Michael Flesch

Sue Fletcher Jane & Nigel Franklin Emma Friedman & Kevin Gold Gillian Frumkin Jenny Garcia Baroness Garden Eleni Gill Julietta Gishen Nick & Fiona Green Elaine & Peter Hallgarten Mark Hamsher & Elna Jacobs Pamela, Lady Harlech Harris Family Charitable Trust Florence & Neil Hasson Jean Hawkins Mary Holness Victoria & Ronald Hooberman Chris Hopson & Charlotte Gascoigne Gillian & Barry Howard Doris Hugh Dr June Huntington Alan & Louise Jacobs Dr Alison Jones Annabel Karmel MBE Alex & Grace Kay Nina Kaye & Timothy Nathan Richard & Susan Keller Angela & John Kessler Edna Kissmann Roger & Yvette Kutchinsky Anne & Brian Lapping Danielle Lawrence Rose & Dudley Leigh Tania & Olivier Levenfiche Roger & Vivien Lewis Sir Sydney Lipworth QC & Lady Lipworth CBE Claire Livingstone Alison & Michael Lurie Kinvara MacTaggart Guido Manca Nick & Sophie Marple Amanda May Jo McKenna Isabelle Mee Dianne & Martin Mendoza Patricia & Richard Millett Lara Mindenhall Clive Mishon Geoffrey Mitchell Beate Mjaaland Roísín Monaghan David & Sandy Montague Mr Nigel Moore David & Bev Mullarkey Nicholas Murphy Jonathan Mussellwhite & Daphne Walker Cecilia Orive Hilary Page & Michael Rosenberg Julia Palca & Nicolas Stevenson Parkheath Franchising Deborah & Clive Parritt Jonathan Pfitzner Mrs Kirsten Poler Jacob Polny Sir Brian & Lady Pomeroy Jane & Nick Prentice Kate Rankine Mike & Louise Redferne Donald Rogers Dan Rosenfield Anthony & Lizzie Rosenfelder Brenda & Neill Ross Bob & Pippa Rothenberg Marion Rubens The Rubin Foundation Mariam Moussavi Satrap Louise & Greg Scott Elizabeth Selzer Suzanne & David Shalson David Sherborne Lucy & Jonathan Silver Brian Smith Karen Smith Dr Diana Spencer Victoria Stark Peter & Prilla Stott James & Imogen Strachan Romie & Esther Tager

Anthony & Jacqueline Todd Katharine Turner Claudia Utermann Laurence Vallaeys Nick Viner & Victoria Boyarsky Donna Vinter Carla Wakefield Gerry Wakelin Christopher Walsh Sophie & Stephen Warshaw Carole & Denis Waxman Paul & Manya Wayne Dr Adrian Whiteson OBE & Mrs Myrna Whiteson MBE Francoise Winton Richard & Susan Wolff David & Vivienne Woolf Katherine Wood J. Wrightson Mrs Karen Yerburgh Joanne & Nick Young Michael & Michaela Zelouf

CORPORATE SUPPORTERS

Aesop Bennetts Associates Farrow & Ball – Hampstead Showroom Linklaters MAC Cosmetics Nyman Libson Paul Sublime Universal Ltd

TRUSTS AND FOUNDATIONS

The AKO Foundation The Chapman Charitable Trust The London Community Foundation & Cockayne – Grants for the Arts The Dorset Foundation Hedley Foundation The David & Elaine Potter Foundation The Rose Foundation The Rothenberg Family* Sir Siegmund Warburg’s Voluntary Settlement The Tsukanov Family Foundation *Access Programme

HAMPSTEAD DOWNSTAIRS

The Andor Charitable Trust Anonymous The John S Cohen Foundation Clore Duffield Foundation Fenton Arts Trust The Garrick Charitable Trust Mr & Mrs V Meyer Edith and Ferdinand Porjes Charitable Trust James Roose-Evans (Frontier TP) The Royal Victoria Hall Foundation The Sackler Trust The Vandervell Foundation Mary Ellen & Tom Wanty The Peter Wolff Trust

HAMPSTEAD THEATRE LITERARY FUND

Adèle Bennett Legacy The Estate of Margaret Lowy The Estates of Peter Anthony Lund and David Gavin Lund In Memory of Henry & Esther Rudolf The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation

INSPIRE Jon & NoraLee Sedmak

HAMPSTEAD STAFF DIRECTORS Zeinab Badawi Susie Boyt Gillian Budd James Harding Adam Jones Dan Marks Simon Parry-Wingfield Karen Paul Jeremy Sandelson Meera Syal Katja Tangen David Tyler (Chair) ADVISORY COUNCIL Dame Jenny

Abramsky DBE

Sir Michael Codron CBE Michael Frayn Daniel Peltz Peter Phillips OBE Paul Rayden Patricia Rothman DEVELOPMENT BOARD Tania Black Karen Paul (Chair) Simon Parry-Wingfield Susan Schoenfeld Harrington Nicholas Snowman OBE Christopher Spray Katja Tangen Peggy Vance Debbie Wosskow ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Edward Hall* EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Greg Ripley-Duggan* ADMINISTRATION Director of Operations and Associate Producer Neil Morris* Production Co-ordinator Amelia Cherry*

Administration and Production Intern Laurel Cummins Head of Finance Ashok Shah Finance Officer Sherry Lau* DEVELOPMENT Director of Development Cathy Baker* Development Manager Sally Wilson* Development Manager Jonathan Mace* LITERARY Literary Manager/ Line Producer Will Mortimer* MARKETING Marketing Director Jess Woodward* Marketing Manager Becky Paris* Marketing Manager Lucie Blockley* Press Jo Allan PR 0207 520 9392 Programme Editor Pascale Giudicelli Design SWD www.swd.uk.com PRODUCTION Technical Director Simon Godfrey* Head of Lighting Emily Holmden* Deputy Head of Lighting Avril Cook* Head of Stage Nick Aldrich* BOX OFFICE Head of Sales Joanne Boniface* Deputy Head of Sales and Access Manager Hannah Gill*

Box Office Assistants Matt Barker Colin Burnicle Laura Cantergril Catherine Carnegie Pippa Davies Edith Furlong Cory Haas Lanna Joffrey Adam Line Kirsty Osmon FRONT OF HOUSE AND CATERING Head of Front of House Rob Coughlan* Head of Catering Assunta Dogali* Kitchen Manager Simon Rodda Assistant Kitchen Manager Joe James Duty Managers Matt Barker Jon Cobb Pippa Davis Edith Furlong Lanna Joffrey Cherise Parks Colm Tracey Bar Duty Managers Laurel Cummins Andrew Jardine Sean Matthew Jones Max Loble William Sebag-Montefiore Hugh Stubbins Front of House Staff Bolaji Alakija Rik Baker Charlie Burt Geraldine Caulfield Ashton Charge Grace Chilton Calvin Crawley Jacob Crossley

Thomas Crowhurst Geraldine Curtis Lily Donnelly Rosie Dwyer James Easey Conor Ensor Isabella Evans Daniel Fernandez Holly Gibbs Lauren Gibson Andrea Golinucci Christine Gomes Caitlin Goodwin Maria Goretti Cabrera Sam Harding Aliou Janha Stella Kailides Martin Karadzhov Nellie Kirsh Bel Knight Mauricia Lewis Claudia Marinaro Alice Morgan Adam Parkinson Callan Purcell Eddie Sellers Ben Fox Smith Jane Staiano Marlow Stainfield Jessica Sykes Josh Taylor Madeline Young Head Cleaner William Dike Cleaners Samuel Gyamfi Paul Jachie *Full time employees

All information and images printed in the Hampstead Cell Mates Programme are the property of Hampstead Theatre.

Edward Hall image HELEN MAYBANKS The Slaves of Solitude production photography MANUEL HARLAN

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