CIRCA - Our Man in Havana

OUR MAN IN HAVANA

by GRAHAM GREENE adapted by CLIVE FRANCIS

directed by ROSS JOLLY

Thrilling high-octane
spy spoof

NZ PREMIÈRE OPENS in CIRCA ONE on 26 FEBRUARY AT 8pm
A wonderfully funny, fast and furious adaptation of Graham Greene's bestselling comic novel, Our Man in Havana is set against the backdrop of the colourful and seedy underworld of 1950s Cuba and takes aim at the absurdity of the British Secret Service and the spying game. And Greene knew what he was talking about – it has recently been revealed that he was an MI6 agent for nearly 50 years!

Jim Wormold, an under-employed vacuum cleaner salesman, is struggling to pay for his teenage daughter's increasingly extravagant lifestyle. So when the British Secret Service asks him to become their 'man in Havana' he can't afford to say no. There's just one problem ... he doesn't know anything! To avoid suspicion, he begins to recruit non-existent agents, concocting a series of hilariously intricate fictions. But he soon finds himself in a disastrous spot of bother when his stories turn out to be closer to the truth than he could have ever imagined.

Starring: JEFF KINGSFORD-BROWN, JESSICA ROBINSON,

SIMON VINCENT, AND JOHN WRAIGHT.

Performed by 4 amazing actors playing over 30 roles (in the style of The 39 Steps), this talented bunch play everything from the menacing Captain Segura, Wormald’s daughter Milly, the German Dr Hasselbacher and the SIS mandarins to nuns, strippers, brothel madams, and the richly assorted citizens of Havana that get caught up in Wormald’s volatile and exotic fantasy.

“A wonderfully entertaining, action-packed romp”

The Dominion Post season of

OUR MAN IN HAVANA

by GRAHAM GREENE adapted by CLIVE FRANCIS

directed by ROSS JOLLY

Starring: JEFF KINGSFORD-BROWN, JESSICA ROBINSON,

SIMON VINCENT, AND JOHN WRAIGHT.

$25 SPECIALS - Friday 25 February – 8pm; Sunday 27 February – 4pm;

AFTER SHOW FORUM – Tuesday 1 March

COLOURFUL CUBA Dress-up Night – Friday 4 March

Performance times: Tuesday & Wednesday - 6.30pm

Thursday, Friday, Saturday - 8pm

Sunday - 4pm

Ticket Prices: Adults - $46; Concessions - $38; Friends of Circa - $33

Under 25s - $25; Groups 6+ - $39

BOOKINGS Circa Theatre www.circa.co.nz

BIOGRAPHIES & CAST COMMENTS

GRAHAM GREENE

Author

Graham Greene, considered one of the greatest and most popular English writers of the 20th century, was a prolific writer. He wrote novels, short stories, biographies and plays, travel books, as well as film criticism. He gathered materials for the settings of his works during his travels all over the world, and many are set in exotic places. His best-known works include Brighton Rock, The Third Man, The Quiet American, The Power and the Glory, The Heart of the Matter, Travels With My Aunt, and Our Man in Havana.

Henry Graham Greene (1904-1991), was born in Berkhamsted and educated in a local school there, and later, at Balliol College, Oxford. He began his career, aged 21, as a journalist in London. When he published his first novel, The Man Within, a few years later, its success allowed him to leave journalism. Later he was employed by the Foreign Office during World War II. And, it has recently been revealed, he worked as a spy for Britain's Secret Intelligences Service from the early 1940s,reporting to them until the end of his life.

It was while he was working in counter-espionage in the Iberian Peninsula that Greene first heard the story of a young Spaniard, Garcia, recruited by German Intelligence, who fed his handlers imaginery reports, based on information from imaginery agents. Garcia became the inspiration for Wormold in Our Man in Havana.

Our Man in Havana was first published in 1958. It was adapteed into a film in 1959 – starring Alec Guinness as Wormold.

CLIVE FRANCIS

Adaptor

Clive Francis was born in Eastbourne, Sussex in 1946 and trained at RADA. He comes from a theatrical family - his father, the actor Raymond Francis, most famous during the 50s and 60s for the long-running television series No Hiding Place; and his mother, Margaret Towner (Jira in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace), who is still performing. well into her 80s.

Best known as an actor and director, Clive began adapting for the stage in 2000 when he created a one-man show of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In 2002 he was commissioned along with Paul Minett and Brian Leveson to adapt the old Ealing film comedy The Lavender Hill Mob for the stage. Clive directed it as well as performing the Alec Guinness role. Other adaptations include Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound Of The Baskervilles (2004), and Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men In A Boat (2006). His adaptation of Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana was first performed in 2007, toured the UK in 2009, and is to be re-launched in Britiain in the spring of this year. He has just completed an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's, The Loved One.

ROSS JOLLY

Director
Founding member of Circa Theatre, Circa councillor, actor and freelance theatre and television director, Ross has directed many productions for Circa including: Master Class, Moonlight, F.I.L.T.H., Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Travels with my Aunt, Social Climbers, Taking Sides (Best Circa Production 1997), Heretic (1998 NZ International Festival of the Arts), The Cripple of Inishmaan, How I Learned to Drive, Waiting for Godot, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, ART, The Unexpected Man, The Memory of Water, The Weir, Madame Melville, Copenhagen, Life x 3, The Birthday Party, Conversations after a Burial, Ancient Lights, Humble Boy, Roger Hall’s Spreading Out (2004 Festival of the Arts), Stones in his Pockets, Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things which was nominated for Best Director and Best Production at the Chapman Tripp awards 2004, An Inspector Calls, The Mercy Seat and Democracy. In 2006 Ross directed the NZ premiere of Ross Gumbley’s Happy Coupling for the Court Theatre, and The Underpants, Wild East and a revival of Master Class for Circa. In 2007 he re-directed Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things for the Court Theatre, followed by Heroes in Circa Two before returning to the world of LaBute for Fat Pig, and ending the year with Rattigan’s modern classic, The Winslow Boy. 2008 saw Ross direct Roger Hall’s Who Wants to be 100? (International Arts Festival), Love Song (Circa 2) and Some Girl(s) (Circa 1), and also re-directed the original cast in Heroes for a season at Expressions in Upper Hutt. In 2009, Ross directed Harold Pinter’s Betrayal and Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage in Circa One before heading to Dunedin to direct the NZ premieres of Don Juan in Soho (by Patrick Marber) and Lucky Numbers, and then back to Circa for the sell-out season of Roger Hall’s Four Flat Whites in Italy. Last year Ross directed David Harrower’s adaptation of Friedrich Schiller’s Mary Stuart. This highly successful production was Circa’s contribution to the NZ Festival of the Arts 2010. Ross’ most recent productions were Mauritius and My First Time, both in Circa One.

Ross won Director of the Year for his production of Waiting for Godot, at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards 1999.

JEFF KINGSFORD-BROWN
“I didn’t realise Graham Greene could be so subversive and so funny.

Sometimes the fantasist Wormald seems to be the only sane one in an insane, upside-down world!”

Jeff has been involved in professional theatre both in NZ and overseas, as an actor and director for over twenty years.

Jeff’ is a regular in the Roger Hall Christmas panto at Circa, his latest role being as the weasely Sheriff of Wellywood in 2010's Robin Hood. Recent Circa productions include the Festival of the Arts production Mary Stuart, and Paul Jenden and Gareth Farr’s Monarchy - the musical and Rome – the musical.

In 2008 he featured with Helen Moulder in Cynthia Fortitude’s Farewell – her first at Soundings Theatre, and also directed Helen in her solo piece A Vote for Cynthia at Circa in the same year. 2009 saw him in Dunedin, at the Fortune Theatre, in Duets (partnering Sue Curnow) directed by Lyndee-Jane Rutherford, and in Don Juan in Soho directed by Ross Jolly, and at Centrepoint in Hits of ‘74, a wonderful, witty and nostalgic take on the 70s by Lucy Schmidt and Staycee Taylor. Jeff directed Four Flat Whites in Italy at Centrepoint Theatre in 2010,a smash hit for the theatre, as well as the premiere of Alison Quigan’s Ladies for Hire, to great critical, and box office, success.

JESSICA ROBINSON
“I love the challenge of multiple roles, the constant paranoia that you are going to find yourself on stage in the wrong costume or even the wrong character just adds to the thrill off it... like one of those dreams where you're giving a speech and suddenly realise you're naked.”

Since graduating from Toi Whakaari: The NZ Drama School in 2005 Jessica has appeared at Circa in The Glass Menagerie, Dumb Show, Mammals and A Streetcar Named Desire for which she was nominated Best Supporting Actress at the Chapman Tripp Awards. Most recently at Circa she performed in The Year of the Rat, Dick Whittington and his Cat, Dead Man’s Cellphone and The Great Gatsby. She has also appeared in the Bats Productions The Singularity, Live at Six, Everything is OK and Christ Almighty.

SIMON VINCENT
“I love this cript from the moment I read it. Graham Greene isone of my favourite authors and this adaptation combines hilarious physical comedy with a wonderful atmosphere of intrigue which, I believe, will keep the audience guessing. The charaters and the world of 1050s Cuba have been so exciting to bring to life”

Simon graduated from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School in 2000, since then he has performed in over 30 professional theatre productions all over the country. In 2006 Simon played Happy in Susan Wilson’s award winning production of Death of a Salesman and he played the title role in The Bacchanals touring production of Hamlet directed by David Lawrence. In 2007 he played Cassio in Johnathan Hendry’s Othello (for which he received a Chapman Tripp nomination for best supporting actor) and Ian Kirkpatrick in Finding Murdoch directed by Geraldine Brophy both at Downstage. In 2008 Simon produced A Renaissance Man, which he also wrote and he also made his directing debut with Handy Man by Gavin McGibbon. In 2008 Simon received the Chapman Tripp award for Outstanding Performance for Metamorphosis directed by Jude Gibson. In 2009 Simon took on the role of producer for the ‘Young and Hungry Youth Theatre festival’. He also appeared as Boxer, Pig and Rat in The Year of the Rat in Circa Two. In 2010 Simon performed in Salon playing Hugh in Paul McLaughlin’s sitespecific production, and then appeared in Wuthering Heights at Fortune Theatre, My First Time at Circa and toured with Heat,. which is currently playing in Circa Two. Simon is a recent addition to the Circa Council.

JOHN WRAIGHT
“I keep on meeting people who not only have read “Our Man in Havana”, but become very animated as they ask which character I am playing. Theor eyes widen as I go through my list! There are many people out there who love Graham Greene, and I am beginning to see why. This very funny and at the samae time moving poke at spies and spying seems just as relevant now as in the time it was set.”

John has just finished a hugely enjoyable stint in his second Circa pantomime – Roger Hall’s Robin Hood (the first was Dick Whittington and his Cat in 2009). John first performed at the old Circa way back in 1985 whilst still at Drama School. He also played Joey in The Homecoming in 1992. Since the shift across the road John has appeared in several productions – his favourites being The Weir and The Birthday Party. John loves travelling with his work, and has been lucky enough to tour both NZ and Australia with Blood Brothers, and last year travelled to Rarotonga to film a second season of the TVNZ/BBC co-production Paradise Café. John is a scorpio, and enjoys surfing, whistling, playing his ukulele and building stuff.

ENDS

© Scoop Media