The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – The Man Out of Time
Over sixty years after its first publication, John le Carré’s classic novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold has finally made it onto the stage. Intrigue and espionage play out within the claustrophobic confines of the theatre, where we watch reluctant spy Alec Leamas embark on what hopes will be his final operation. Yet nothing is as it seems, and an increasingly paranoid Leamas starts to suspect that his old friend George Smiley has entrapped him in a complex plan of which Leamas can only see the surface.
It is a setup that means The Spy Who Came in from the Cold hits all the notes you want from a spy thriller, which is only to be expected from a play based on one of the defining novels of the genre, written by one of its enduring masters. Such a heritage can also be a drawback, however, for what was novel and exciting in the sixties risks being dated and familiar in the present day. Like Alec Leamas himself, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is now out of its own time, struggling to adjust, and unsure what it can still offer as the world moves on.