Google Wormald and you’ll find they’ve been specialists in fire protection since 1889. But you wouldn’t turn to Graham Greene’s Wormald – the protagonist of Our Man in Havana (1958) – for any sort of protection. Quite the opposite: he attracts danger. 

A thriller, described by Greene as “an entertainment”, Our Man in Havana is something of a cautionary tale: be careful what you lie about because some of it may come true and people may die. 

Not long before it would become fashionable to ‘rip off the system (cf. Yippies), Greene’s failing British vacuum cleaner retailer in Havana allows himself to get sucked into the world of espionage to satisfy the demands of his 16 year-old daughter Millie and realise his own dream of being able to afford to retire back to Britain. And so the intrigues begin … 

Adapted for stage by Clive Francis, it is billed in Circa’s publicity flyer as a “thrilling high-octane spy spoof … performed by 4 actors playing over 30 roles in the style of The 39 Steps,” the Patrick Barlow adaptation of which, directed by Peter Hambleton in 2009, I described as “utter jolly trivia in the style of Michael Palin & Terry Jones’ Ripping Yarns, with a whiff of the Goon Show.” But Our Man in Havanais more a satire than a spoof and as such it has a point to make. At least I think it does. 

There is serious jeopardy for Wormald when his ruse for securing a better income is in danger of being exposed, and double-edged outcomes as the coincidences that save his bacon become more and more lethal for others. And of course the tension created by this jeopardy should be a powerful progenitor of comedy.

What undermines its potential most is the Francis adaptation, which retains far too much explanatory narration. Telling us what we can already see robs us of the thrill of discovery – as essential in a thriller as in comedy – and lulls us into a passive state. Perhaps it is inevitable, then, that in this Ross Jolly-directed production, the telling overshadows the showing and constantly subverts the few opportunities the characters have to ‘be’ in their moments.

Yet despite the visible action being over-explained, Wormald’s web of deceit remains too tangled for us to discern to what extent he may be actively responsible for the lethal violence in which he becomes embroiled. This, surely, is the key question we should feel moved to answer, yet there is little evidence the script and/or the production is concerned with that enquiry.  

Nevertheless most of the actors do a splendid job of delineating the characters and slipping betwixt them, aided by the excellence of Gillie Coxill’s costuming, Phillip Dexter’s lighting and John Hodgkins’ set which incorporates and evocative array of backdrop images collatred by Rob Ormsby and Annie Lowe.  

Jeff Kingsford-Brown gives an adequate account of Wormald but could mine the fear and guilt factors more to engage our greater empathy. Although he seems vocally limited to a tenor range, he makes enough of a physical change in The Chief, back in London, to avoid any confusion.  

With 15 characters, plus the share of narrating all are lumbered with, moustachioed Simon Vincent excels through complete physical and vocal transformations. With the sloppy Lopez at one extreme and the menacing police chief Segura at the other, he nails the lot, tagging it all with a Queen that witty blends HRH QEII with a hint of Freddie Mercury.  

Jessica Robinson, who excels at accents, delivers nine beautifully formed characters, interleaving a highly credible Millie and very real Miss Jenkins, the secretary from head office, with a series of broadly drawn cameos.  

Likewise John Wraight has fun with some of his eight characters while grounding the story in its complex realities with his Herr Hasselbacher and the enigmatic Hawthorne from head office.

This production could evolve in two ways as the season progresses. Either its dramatic comedy-of-jeopardy values will come onto stronger focus or it will descend into being played for cheap laughs. I won’t try to guess which way it will go but I do know which I’d prefer.
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