A café in Cold War era Budapest. A man and a woman sit at a table. Both are hoping to extract valuable intelligence from the other. The English ‘Agent’ (Joe Mihranian) is a bumbling, stuttering Boris-meets-Hugh Grant spy; The Russian ‘Comrade’ (Ella Sheree) is a glacially cold and calm one. Both are young, hot and very inexperienced; what could possibly go right?
Predictably, not much. A Covert Affair, Alex Macfarlane and Charlie Turner‘s sell-out Fringe show last year, is one of those intimate, claustrophobic plays where there is little on-stage action so the words and acting need to be good, and fortunately they are, on both counts.
Through reems of intriguing dialogue, we witness Agent and Comrade get to know each other as she teases and challenges and he defends and inadvertently charms. ‘Wading?! Vot is zis wading?’ she teases, as he tells her of his innocent hobby back in his beloved Hampshire. And ‘Only Durham: not Oxford?’ she chides as she learns where he attended university.
It’s funny and fascinating as we get to know them too. Or we think we do; we’re never completely certain and, I feel, neither are they. Periodically, they must report back to their (off stage and anonymous) superiors who bark at them, chastising them for their slow progress and grilling them for any useful information they might have gleaned.
The two spies meet regularly. They go for a walk in the park. They go for dinner. They fall for each other. They go to bed – with each other. They even make an attempt at doing their jobs and take notes about each other.
But their respective superiors are no fools and learn of the relationship that has developed and duly interrogate them again. Will one sell the other out? Inexperienced the Agent and the Comrade may be, but stupid they aren’t. A cunning plan is hatched whereby they might escape with their love and lives.
With its occasional satirical nods to Graham Greene’s ‘Our Man In Havana’, I thoroughly enjoyed this play: sassy Comrade with her addictive Russian accent and the charmingly naïve Agent really gelled to make A Covert Affair a tragi-rom-com Cold War joy.
Edward Bliss
A Covert Affair runs until Friday August 14 https://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/events/a-covert-affair
