Brief Encounter will get a brief-ish visit on stage from its director, Emma Rice, when the Kneehigh Theatre Company artistic director takes over the role of Myrtle for a month (July 21-August 18). The production, adapted from the classic film and its earlier Noel Coward theatrical source,
Still Life, is now booking through October 19 at the Cinema on the Haymarket.
Rice will replace Tamzin Griffin as Myrtle, the gorgon who runs the station cafe where Laura (Naomi Frederick) and Alec (Tristan Sturrock) initiate their affair. The play has been part of a busy spate of Coward of late, which includes the ongoing revival of his early show,
The Vortex, with Felicity Kendal and Dan Stevens, as well as the recent National Theatre revival of
Present Laughter, starring Alex Jennings.
For this production, a onetime central London cinema has been drafted into a play that then incorporates film footage within it. The producers are Dafydd Rogers and David Pugh, who are concurrently represented in London by
God of Carnage, the Yasmina Reza play that recently recouped. Their recent revival of Peter Shaffer's
Equus opens on Broadway in the fall.