Ciphers – a psychological spy thriller

Ciphers – a psychological spy thriller

Spies are easy to recognise. They look just like you. People disappear; people get killed; and, as you well know, some people even get into holdalls and zip up and padlock themselves in and suffocate. 

Dawn King, who wrote Foxfinder, which won her an award for ‘Most Promising a Playwright’, has written a psychological thriller about double agents, Muslim informers and Russian diplomats.

A woman, who worked for MI6, is murdered. Her sister determines to find out who did it and why? In a world where lies and deceit are paramount, truth is not easy to find. She suspects a cover-up. Quid custodiet ipsos custodies?

Tanitch at the Theatre

Tanitch at the Theatre

The story is told out of sequence with jump cuts as if it were a screenplay. But what are we watching? A John Le Carre spy thriller?  Or a crime passionel? What would make you betray your country?

The play is directed by Blanche McIntyre. There are eight characters but only four actors, which certainly adds to the confusion of who is who and who is spying on whom? The actors occasionally speak in Russian. What they are saying is translated into English on big screens either side of the stage.  The actors also on one occasion speak Japanese and this, too, is translated into English.

The person sitting next to me was really cool. He did not once look at the translations and laughed in all the right places. Obviously a spy.

by Robert Tanitch, Mature Times theatre reviewer

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