Kneehigh Theatre’s production of Noel Coward’s Brief Encounter, adapted and directed by Emma Rice, is set to play an unusual West End venue, according to The Daily Mail. Producers David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers are presenting the piece at the Cineworld movie theatre on the Haymarket. Performances will begin on 2 February.
In the classic 1945 David Lean film, which Coward adapted from his one-act play Still Life, Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson played Alec and Laura, a middle-class couple who meet by chance at a railway station. Although they are already married, they gradually fall in love and continue to see each other, though they know their love is impossible. Naomi Fredericks and Tristan Sturrock play Alec and Laura in the Kneehigh production of the romantic drama.
Cineworld, which will be called The Cinema for the play’s engagement, was built in 1927 and was then known as the Carlton Theatre. Designed to house both films and plays, it will return to its original intended use with Brief Encounter on the main stage and two screens still available for movies. The theatre’s owner is considering playing 1940s films on those screens in keeping with Brief Encounter’s period.
The production, which combines stage and screen imagery, has played at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and West Yorkshire Playhouse to much acclaim. Opening night set for 17 February in the West End.