Alan Bennett takes a wry, poignant look at the compromised situation of the Cambridge spies in this Olivier Award-winning double bill starring Alex Hanson and Michael Pennington.
An Englishman Abroad tells the touching story of actress Coral Browne and her chance encounter with disgraced spy Guy Burgess in a Moscow theatre. Invited to dine at his flat, she receives just one simple instruction: ‘bring a tape measure’.
A Question Of Attribution follows esteemed art historian and Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, Anthony Blunt. As he tries to solve the riddle of an enigmatic painting, Blunt finds himself the subject of a more official investigation by MI5. Will he be exposed for what would later be revealed to the world, that the man who worked in the heart of the royal household was also a Soviet spy?
Hanson, last seen on the London stage in Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Stephen Ward, will play Burgess in An Englishman Abroad alongside Helen Schlesinger (Coriolanus, Donmar Warehouse) as Coral Browne. Pennington, who was recently seen in Dances Of Death at the Gate Theatre, will play A Question Of Attribution’s Blunt.
Single Spies won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy in 1989/90.