Remembered as one of the most haunting love stories ever, Kneehigh’s smash-hit theatrical reinvention of the Noël Coward film Brief Encounter, adapted and directed by Emma Rice, returns to the West End.

Brief Encounter is based on a chance meeting in a railway station café, where two people were brought together by one ‘getting a little piece of grit in my eye’, culminating in a haunting and heart-breaking love story.

The award-winning Kneehigh adaptation, which was originally produced at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, first triumphed in the West End in 2008, and subsequently received great critical acclaim on Broadway and worldwide.

A mixture of film and stage play, with additional musical elements, Brief Encounter has toured all over the world, and is once again presented in London at the restored Empire Cinema Haymarket in 2018.

The Brief Encounter cast features Jim Sturgeon, who returns to the role of Alec, along with Isabel Pollen as Laura, Lucy Thackeray as Myrtle, Beverly Rudd as Beryl, Jos Slovick as Stanley and Dean Nolan as Fred/Albert, as well as Katrina Kleve and Peter Dukes.

Combining the romance of cinema with all that live theatre can offer, Brief Encounter is a story of magic, passion, surprise, suggestion and naughtiness. Radical and romantic, nostalgic but relevant – let passions ignite!