Greene with Envy

Although Grahame Greene considered The Ministry of Fear to be a potboiler, he still found space for his typical meditations on human nature and the holy. He laced together this story of Nazi spies, brutal psychiatry and redemption with the usual irony, discovering the heroic in the mundane and the treachery within virtue.

Theatre Alibi's script wisely includes passages from the novel, both to move the plot and comment on the characters. Their small cast swaps roles, emphasising the broad comedy and chasing the action through fairground, offices, convalescent hospitals and train stations. A set abstract enough to suggest bomb shelter, bridge and labyrinthine hotel frames the excitement, and the cast excel at a physical theatre that is half Monty Python absurdity and half exuberant mime.

Most importantly, they give Greene's themes space. The humour does undermine some of the drama: Greene's vision of WWII Britain is a shattered land of shell-shock, treachery and doubt, and Alibi play heavily for laughs. Fortunately, Greene's characterisation is coherent and poetic. The finale, where The Ministry of Fear is identified not as an arm of the state but the state of being is love is resonant and, above all, honest. Alibi use some imaginative techniques, married to a traditional theatrical narrative: they are in danger of giving adaptations a good name.