West End Premiere of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

West End Premiere of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

John le Carré’s  THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

Adapted by David Eldridge

Directed by Jeremy Herrin

WEST END PREMIERE

A global best-seller for over six decades, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is the first work by John le Carré to be staged in the West End.

Award-winning writer David Eldridge adapts the novel that revolutionised the espionage genre with Jeremy Herrin directing.

Rory Keenan and Agnes O’Casey star as Alec Leamas and Liz Gold, with Gunnar Cauthery as Hans-Dieter Mundt and John Ramm as George Smiley.

The Ink Factory and Second Half Productions have today announced the West End premiere of John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright and screenwriter David Eldridge (Festen). This is the first novel by the undisputed master of the modern spy genre to be brought to life on stage. Jeremy Herrin will direct following his recent acclaimed productions of People, Places and Things and Long Day’s Journey into Night.

Following its 2024 sold out premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre The Spy Who Came In From The Cold will run @sohoplace from 17 November 2025 – 21 February 2026 with opening night on 26 November 2025. Tickets go on general sale from 10am on Thursday 22 May.

Rory Keenan (Somewhere Boy, The Regime) and Screen International Star of Tomorrow Agnes O’Casey (Lies We Tell, Black Doves) reprise their critically acclaimed roles as disillusioned British intelligence officer Alec Leamas and the idealistic, left-wing librarian Liz Gold. John Ramm (King Lear, Wolf Hall/Bring Up The Bodies) and Gunnar Cauthery (Dear England, Mack & Mabel) also return as George Smiley and Hans-Dieter Mundt. Completing the cast are original performers Philip Arditti (Breathtaking, No Return) as Fielder, Norma Atallah as Miss Crail/President of the Tribunal, Matt Betteridge (Ulster American, Slow Horses) as Riemeck/Kiever, Ian Drysdale (Firebrand, Ross) as Control, Tom Kanji (Richard My Richard, The Box of Delights) as Ashe and David Rubin (Grantchester, Finding My Voice) as Pitt/Ford.

British intelligence officer Alec Leamas is weary, hardened, and ready to come in from the cold. But when spymaster George Smiley presents one final mission — dangerous, deceptive, and deeply personal — Leamas agrees to stay in the game. Dispatched into enemy territory, he finds his convictions tested and his defences breached by Liz Gold, a quietly defiant librarian whose compassion threatens to thaw his frostbitten heart.

A global bestseller for over six decades and named one of TIME Magazine’s All-Time 100 Novels, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is le Carré at his most incisive — a story of betrayal not only between nations, but within the human soul.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, is designed by Max Jones with lighting design by Azusa Ono, composition by Paul Englishby, sound design by Elizabeth Purnell, movement direction by Lucy Cullingford, fight direction by Bret Yount, and voice by Hazel Holder. Completing the creative team is Casting Director Jessica Ronane CDG.

David Eldridge says: “It has been a great privilege adapting John le Carré’s youthful masterpiece for the theatre, and it gives me great pleasure that after a sellout run in Chichester, we’re able to share the play with audiences in London. Although set in the murky world of the cold war espionage thriller it’s a strikingly relevant story for our times. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold asks us how one can retain one’ s humanity and morality if one must operate with the same impunity and brutality as your enemy to defeat him?”

Jeremy Herrin says: “Rapt full houses in Chichester told us that John le Carré’s hit novel translates meaningfully to the stage, so it’s great to bring The Spy Who Came In From The Cold to the glorious Soho Place, just up the road from George Smiley’s old haunt at Cambridge Circus. It’s an appropriate place to explore the high stakes of the Cold War, the moral bankruptcy of both East and West, and the power of love when Alec Leamas eventually finds something worth fighting for. David Eldridge keeps us on the edge of our seats as a talented group of actors take us on the twists and turns of this shattering and thrilling ride.”

Simon Cornwell Co-CEO, and Co-Founder of The Ink Factory says: “It’s thrilling to be bringing John le Carré’s global best-seller The Spy Who Came In From The Cold to the West End: the first of le Carré’s novels ever adapted for the stage.  David Eldridge and Jeremy Herrin have embraced the book’s ‘atmosphere of chilly hell’, as JB Priestley called it, to create a thrilling, visceral and emotionally devastating piece of theatre, brought to life by a brilliant ensemble.  We can’t wait to share their stunning work with le Carré fans old and new, and we hope they are excited by it as we are.”

Justin Audibert Artistic Director and Kathy Bourne Executive Director of Chichester Festival Theatre say: “The Spy Who Came Into The Cold was one of the hottest tickets of Festival 2024 at Chichester Festival Theatre. We were so excited to produce the first-ever stage adaptation of a John le Carré novel in David Eldridge’s totally gripping version; and we’re delighted that London audiences will have the chance to relish Jeremy Herrin’s memorable production with the outstanding original cast.”

DAVID ELDRIDGE is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. His work is performed across the UK and internationally in translation.

His original plays include the first two plays in a trilogy for the National Theatre, Beginning and Middle; Market Boy (National Theatre); Holy Warriors (Shakespeare’s Globe); In Basildon, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court) and Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court & Duke of York’s Theatre, West End: Time Out Live and Theatregoers Choice Awards for Best New Play); The Stock Da’wa and Falling (Hampstead Theatre); The Knot of the Heart (Almeida Theatre: Off West End Award for Best Play); A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky (co-written with Simon Stephens and Robert Holman, Lyric Hammersmith); Something, Someone, Somewhere (Sixty Six Books, Bush Theatre); M.A.D. and Serving It Up (Bush Theatre); Summer Begins (Donmar Warehouse); A Week with Tony, Fighting for Breath (Finborough Theatre); Dirty (Theatre Royal Stratford East); Cabbage for Tea, Tea, Tea! (Platform 4, Exeter).

Adaptations include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold from the novel by John le Carré (Chichester Festival Theatre), new versions of Strindberg’s Miss Julie and Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea (Royal Exchange, Manchester), John Gabriel Borkman and The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse); Jean-Marie Besset’s Babylone (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry); and Festen from the Dogme 95 Film (Almeida, Lyric Theatre West End & Broadway: Theatregoer’s Choice Award for Best New Play).

Screenplays include The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2), Our Hidden Lives and Killers (BBC4) and his many plays for radio include The Picture Man, which won the Prix Europa for Best European Radio Drama.

David Eldridge is currently under commission to ITV Studios and Mammoth Screen for Betrayal, a four-part TV series, shooting in summer 2025, starring Shaun Evans. In November 2025 the National Theatre will present the world premiere of the final play in his trilogy about love and relationships, End, starring Clive Owen and Saskia Reeves.

He is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London.

JEREMY HERRIN is a Director of Second Half Productions and the former Artistic Director of Headlong and Deputy Artistic Director of the Royal Court. Over two decades, Jeremy has directed a string of award winning hits that transferred to the West End and New York, including That Face by Polly Stenham (Royal Court and West End), This House by James Graham (National Theatre and West End), Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies (RSC, West End and Broadway), The Nether by Jennifer Haley (Royal Court and West End), People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan (National Theatre, West End and St Ann’s Warehouse, New York), Labour of Love by James Graham (West End), Best of Enemies (Young Vic) and Almost Famous the Musical (Broadway). In 2021, Jeremy directed the world premiere of After Life by Jack Thorne (National Theatre). For Second Half Productions, he has directed The Glass Menagerie, Olivier-nominated play Best of Enemies by James Graham (West End), David Ireland’s Ulster American, A Mirror by Sam Holcroft, Long Day’s Journey Into Night and the West End revival of People, Places and Things by Duncan Macmillan. Later this year Jeremy will direct the West End transfer of Duncan MacMillan and Jonny Donahoe’s Every Brilliant Thing @sohoplace.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

John le Carré is the nom de plume of David John Moore Cornwell, who was born on 19th October 1931 in Poole, Dorset. He was educated at Sherborne School, the University of Bern and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Modern Languages. He taught at Eton from 1956 to 1958 and was a member of the British Foreign Service from 1959 to 1964, serving first as Second Secretary in the British Embassy in Bonn, and subsequently as Political Consul in Hamburg.

He began writing in 1961 and published twenty-six novels and one memoir. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international bestseller, spending 32 weeks at number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list; it was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by Time magazine.

Many of his novels have been made into film, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy), The Constant Gardener (Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz), The Russia House (Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer) and The Tailor of Panama (Pierce Brosnan).  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People (starring Alec Guinness), A Perfect Spy (Peter Egan), The Night Manager (Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hollander, Elizabeth Debicki) and The Little Drummer Girl (Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård) have all been adapted for television.

John le Carré declined all British-based honours, but accepted the title of Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France) in 2005, and the Goethe Medal (Germany) in 2011. He was also the recipient of the Olof Palme Prize in Stockholm at the beginning of 2020.  In 2010, he was awarded the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence, which he received at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.

He was an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford and held Honorary Doctorates at Exeter University, the Universities of St. Andrews, Bath, Southampton, Plymouth, Bern, Oxford and Falmouth College of Arts.

He died of pneumonia in Cornwall on 12th December 2020.

“Blisteringly contemporary…Each new book from le Carré is refreshingly different and uniquely compelling” – The Economist.

“Finely drawn and precisely engineered – one of our finest novelists.” – The Financial Times.

“His readers will know from his first line that they are in the presence of a great enchanter.” Robert McCrum – The Observe

The Spy Who Came in From The Cold  is presented in association with Bartner and Tulchin, Monkstown and Scott Delman and David Hartford.