The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

About The Show

For the first time ever, a novel by John le Carré — the undisputed master of the modern spy genre — is brought to life in a thrilling stage adaptation.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, a towering work of twentieth-century fiction, comes to the West End for what promises to be the theatrical event of the autumn: a journey through the fog-shrouded terrain of Cold War espionage, deception, and moral compromise.

British intelligence officer Alec Leamas is weary, hardened, and ready to come in from the cold. But when his boss George Smiley presents one final mission — dangerous, deceptive, and deeply personal — Leamas agrees to stay in the game. Dispatched into enemy territory, he finds his convictions tested and his defences breached by Liz Gold, a quietly defiant librarian whose compassion threatens to thaw his frostbitten heart.

A global bestseller for over six decades and named one of TIME Magazine’s All-Time 100 Novels, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is le Carré at his most incisive — a story of betrayal not only between nations, but within the human soul.

Following a sold-out run at Chichester Festival Theatre, this West End premiere reunites playwright David Eldridge (Beginning, Middle) and director Jeremy Herrin (A Mirror, People, Places and Things) for a theatrical experience of rare intensity.

Please note: This production contains strong language and derogatory language prevalent at the period; and depictions of violence including gunshots

  • Show Dates

    17th November - 21st February 2026
  • Duration

    2hours 10mins, including an interval
  • Age Recommendation

    12+
  • Ticket Info

    Tickets From: £25

    @sohoplace has contactless ticketing for every performance. Tickets will be issued electronically 48 hours prior to the performance.

    Fair access: 50% off across all bands

  • Group Tickets

    Group Booking Enquiries
    Call us on +44 (0)330 333 4817 or email us at groups@nimaxtheatres.com

    Groups 8+
    £45 on bands A & B, valid on Monday to Wednesday evenings and midweek matinee performances.

    Education Rate 10+
    £25 on bands B & C plus 1 teacher goes free with every 10 tickets. Valid on Monday to Wednesday and midweek matinee performances.

Reviews

★★★★

‘A tense, gripping adaptation with moody flair’

Financial Times
★★★★

‘A tense, atmospheric production’

Daily Mail
★★★★

‘This slick and stylish production is meticulously mounted by Jeremy Herrin’

The i

Cast

Rory Keenan

Alec Leamas

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Plenty, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me (Chichester Festival Theatre); Trouble in Mind, Liola, The Kitchen, Damned by Despair (National Theatre); Afterplay (Coronet Theatre); Long Day’s Journey Into Night (West End/New York); Saint Joan, Welcome Home Mr Fox!, Philadelphia Here I Come! (Donmar Warehouse); The Seagull (Corn Exchange); Dublin Carrol (Donmar at Trafalgar Studios); Lakeboat, Prairie du Chien (Arcola); The Big Fellah (Lyric Hammersmith); Macbeth (Once Off Productions); Saved (Peacock Theatre Dublin); Don Carlos, The Taming of the Shrew (Rough Magic Theatre Company); The School for Scandal, Six Characters in Search of an Author, She Stoops to Folly (Abbey Theatre); Festen, A Christmas Carol (Gate Theatre); Levelland (Edinburgh Festival); Hysteria (Project Theatre); The Shaughraun (West End); Monged (Fishamble Theatre Company); Hamlet (Second Age Theatre Company).

Television includes: The Regime, Funny Woman, Blackshore, Somewhere Boy, Rules of the Game, The Duchess, Come Home, Versailles, Striking Out, Lucky Man, War and Peace, Peaky Blinders II, Birdsong, Primeval, Aristocrats, On Home Ground, Showbands, The Clinic.

Films include: As writer/director: the upcoming Seahorse, as well as Bump (Best Debut Galway Film Festival and Best Director at the British Short Film Awards). As actor: Power Ballad, Boski Plan, Refriending, Human Remains, The Young Messiah, Grimsby, Take Down, Second Coming, The Guard, Ella Enchanted, Intermission, One Hundred Mornings, Pride and Joy, Reign of Fire, Zonad.

Agnes O'Casey

Liz Gold

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Seagull (Druid Theatre Company).

Television includes: Star City, Black Doves, The Mirror and The Light, Dangerous Liaisons, Ridley Road.

Film includes: Small Things Like These, Lies We Tell, The Miracle Club.

David Rubin

Pitt/Ford/Governor

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre),  Tamburlaine; Hamlet; Romeo and Juliet; The Tempest; Antony and Cleopatra; The Winter’s Tale; Julius Caesar; Morte D’Arthur; Titus Andronicus; A Mad World My Masters; The Grain Store; American Trade; Split Second (RSC); The Threepenny Opera; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; As You Like It; Twelfth Night; The Tempest; The Red Balloon (National Theatre); Woyzeck (The Old Vic); People, Places & Things (NT/Wyndhams); Five Guys Names Moe (Lyric); Stomp (Royal Festival Hall and Athens); Godspell (Barbican); Oxy and the Morons, Company and Duck Variations (New Wolsey); Pitcairn (Chichester/The Globe); Richard III (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Twelfth Night (Liverpool

Everyman); The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Theatre 360, Kensington Palace Gardens); Macbeth (Chester Gateway); The Wizard of Oz (Oldham Coliseum); Sleeping Beauty (Stratford East); Aladdin (Oxford Playhouse); Juicy Bits and Fight Face (Lyric Hammersmith); Sharrow Stories (Sheffield Crucible); In The Midnight House (Young Vic); Hamlet; The Lost Soul; This; As The Mother of a Brown Boy; The Attraction; Globaleyes; Paula’s Story (Chicken Shed Theatre).

Film and television includes: Granchester (Kudos/ITV); Midsomer Murders (Bentley Productions), Finding My Voice (Silent D Productions); Love at First Sight (Ace Entertainment); Vera (ITV); Judy (Calamity Films); Doctor Who (BBC); Brooms (Stomp, Yes/No Productions); The Block, Three Sheets to the Wind and Playing With Fire (DT Films); The Passion (BBC/HBO); Sitting Pretty, Dalziel and Pascoe, EastEnders, Holby City and Walking With Cabemen (BBC); Birds of a Feather (ITV); Mysteries of July (Ch 4); Playdays and Zig-Zag Romans (BBC); The DJ Kat Show (Sky); Good Health (Ch 4) and Number 73 (ITV).

Gunnar Cauthery

Mundt

Theatre includes: Dear England (also West End), Another World: Losing Our Children to Islamic State, The Suicide, This House, The White Guard (National Theatre); The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Mack and Mabel (also tour), The House of Special Purpose (Chichester Festival Theatre); Nachtland  (Young Vic); Saving Grace (Riverside Studios); All My Sons (Old Vic); Ravens: Spassky vs Fischer, Wild Honey, Wonderland, The Empty Quarter (Hampstead Theatre); Little Shop of Horrors (Royal Exchange); Privacy (Donmar Warehouse); The Winter’s Tale, Henry V (Propeller); A View From The Bridge (Edinburgh Royal Lyceum); Harvest (Oxford Playhouse).

Television includes: Eastenders, Doctor Who, Casualty, The First Team, Mars, Genius: Einstein, The Tudors, The Demon Headmaster, Just William.

Film includes: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Eurovision, The Nest, War Horse, Benjamin Dove.

Radio includes: Home Front, Tommies, Watership Down, Reykjavík, Planet B, Wives and Daughters.

Ian Drysdale

Control

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Crucible (Sheffield Theatres); Backstairs Billy (Duke of Yorks); A Doll’s House Part 2, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Ivanov (Donmar); The Mirror and The Light (Gielgud); The Visit, Network, Blood and Gifts (National Theatre); The Night of The Iguana, All About Eve, Henry V (Noel Coward); Richard III, Twelfth Night (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Tempest (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Oedipus (Nottingham Playhouse, Liverpool Playhouse); On The Waterfront (Nottingham Playhouse); Rough Crossings (Headlong); Pilate, Sejanus:His Fall, Thomas More, Hamlet, Macbeth, Brand, Much Ado About Nothing, Anthony & Cleopatra (RSC); Treasure Island (Tobacco Factory); Tear From A Glass Eye (Gate Theatre); Idée Fixe, The Beaux Stratagem (Bristol Old Vic);  Blue Remembered Hills (Edinburgh Festival).

Television includes: Star City, Silo, Young Sherlock, The Diplomat, Buffering, Sitting in Limbo, Deep State, Casualty, Harlots, Doc Martin, Atlantis, Suffragette, Southcliffe, Fashion, The Verdict, Pulling, Time Gentleman Please, South Bank Show, The Bill.

Film includes: Firebrand, Wicked Little Letters, My Policeman, Genius, Supernova, Tulip Fever, Suffragette.

John Ramm

George Smiley/Karden

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, Nicholas Nickleby, 5/11, King Lear (Chichester Festival Theatre); Sheppey (Orange Tree: Offie Award for Best Actor); Much Ado About Nothing (Theatr Clwyd); As You Like It, The Wonder of Sex, An Inspector Calls (National Theatre); Love Upon the Throne (Comedy Theatre); Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Pedro The Great Pretender (RSC); The Machine (The Armoury, New York/MIF); The Low Road (Royal Court); The Physicists, Good (Donmar Warehouse); Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s); 66 Books (Bush Theatre); The Deep Blue Sea (West Yorkshire Playhouse); The Cherry Orchard (Birmingham Playhouse); Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Haymarket Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Rose Theatre Kingston); Tartuffe (Liverpool Playhouse & Rose Theatre Kingston); Ring Round the Moon (Playhouse Theatre); Uncle Vanya (Birmingham Rep); And Then There Were None (Gielgud Theatre); Twelfth Night (Royal Exchange Manchester); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cymbeline (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Winter’s Tale (Salisbury Playhouse); Measure for Measure (Nottingham Playhouse/Barbican).

Television includes: The Enfield Poltergeist, Am I Being Unreasonable?, Doctors, A Spy Among Friends, Quacks, Humans, Count Arthur Strong, Come Fly With Me, 2012, Midsomer Murders, Krod Mandoon, My Family, Foyle’s War, The Palace, Losing It, Robin Hood, Massive Landmarks of the 20th Century.

Films include: Bus Driver, Mary Queen of Scots, On Chesil Beach, The Love Punch, The Nine Lives of Thomas Katz, Shakespeare in Love, Food of Love

Mat Betteridge

Karl Riemeck/Kiever

Theatre include: Stranger Things: The First Shadow (The Phoenix Theatre); The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); Ulster American (Riverside Studios);  All of Us, Manor, King Leah (National Theatre); Market Boy, Heartbreak House (Union Theatre); Hireth (O-region); Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing (Waterloo East Theatre); A Judgement in Stone (UK tour); The Test (Southwark Playhouse); Antenora, Bipolar Me (Etcetera Theatre); The Foolish Young Man (The Roundhouse); Bird in The Bush, Crystal Clear (Edinburgh Festival), The Pride (The English Theatre of Hamburg); Private Lives, The Winters Tale, Beginning/Middle (Ovo Theatre).

Television and film includes; Slow Horses (Apple TV), Crimewatch (BBC); Arrows of Desire (Channel 4); The Flash (DC FILMS).

Norma Atallah

Miss Crail / President of the Tribunal

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Oyster Problem (Jermyn Street Theatre); Babette’s Feast (The Print Room); Daisy Pulls It Off (The Gatehouse); Stepping Out (UK tour); Follies (National Theatre); In the Heights (King’s Cross Theatre); The Pirates of Penzance (Kilworth House); Nine (Donmar Warehouse); Les Misérables (Palace Theatre).

Television includes: Doctors, The Evermoor Chronicles, Rome, Judge John Deed, Chucklevision, Genie in the House, The Biz, Hale and Pace, EastEnders, Gold Digger, The Spy Series, The Sound of Music Live.

Films include: Eximo, Mortdecai, The Story of F…, The Kid, Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, Mamma Mia!, Yentl.

Phillip Arditti

Fiedler

Theatre includes: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); Baghdaddy, Who Cares (Royal Court); English Kings Killing Foreigners
(Camden People’s Theatre, also as co-writer); Copenhagen (Bath/UK Tour), Oslo (NT/West End), Salome, The Holy Rosenbergs, England People Very Nice (National Theatre); Histories (Shakespeare’s Globe).

Televison includes: The Day of The Jackal (Sky);  Protection, Breathtaking, No Return (ITV); The Honourable Woman, Black Earth Rising (BBC) House of Saddam (HBO/BBC);

Film includes: Inferno, Red II, Happy Go Lucky, John Carter

Tom Kanji

Ashe

Theatre includes: This is not a Happy Room (Kings Head); Twelfth Night (Orange Tree); Spy Who Came in From the Cold, The Country Wife (Chichester Festival Theatre); Richard My Richard (Shakespeare North/Bury St Edmonds); Julius Ceaser, Box of Delights (RSC); Pinocchio (Unicorn); Private Peaceful (Nottingham Playhouse); Home I’m Darling (Keswick/Scarborough/Bolton); Shoe Lady (Royal Court); Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Doctor Scroggy’s War, Eternal Love (Shakespeare’s Globe); Yes Prime Minister (Theatre Clwyd); Richard III (Headlong); Taming of the Shrew (AFTLS US Tour); Midsummer Nights Dream, Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Rose); Box of Delights (Wilton’s Music Hall); Fiddler on the Roof, Romeo and Juliet, The Story Giant, The Sum (Liverpool Everyman); Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Much Ado About Nothing (Barbican); Cadfael – The Virgin in the Ice (Middle Ground Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night (Ludlow Festival); A Russian Play (Lion and Unicorn); Hamlet (Northern Broadsides); Othello, Importance of Being Earnest (QM2); Wild Horses (Theatre 503); Back of the Throat (Old Red Lion); The Girl, The Oil Pipe and The Murder in the Forum, The Tempest (Tara Arts); Prints of Denmark (Edinburgh Fringe); Les Liaisons Dangereuses (New Vic Stoke); Indian Ink (Salisbury Playhouse).

Television includes: Supacel (Netflix); Tyrant (Fox TV); Silent Witness (BBC); Hustle (BBC); Midnight Man (ITV); Saddam’s Tribe (Channel 4).

Creative Team

David Eldridge

Adapter

Jeremy Herrin

Director

Max Jones

Set & Costume Design

Azusa Ono

Lighting

Elizabeth Purnell

Sound

Paul Englishby

Composer

Jessica Ronane CDG

Casting

Joe Lichtenstein

Associate Director

Lucy Cullingford

Movement

Accessible Performances & Tickets

Access Enquiries
To book accessible seating for all of our performances, including wheelchair park seats please click here.

Call us on 0330 333 5962 or email us at access@sohoplace.org.

Upcoming Performances:

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Photography and recording of any kind is strictly prohibited.