The play will be streamed online from the 15th April and will then be followed by a UK tour early summer.
The Original Theatre Company have announced its first live stage production since March 2020, which will be filmed on stage at the Cheltenham Everyman Theatre and released online, before touring UK theatres early summer.
A Splinter of Ice is the new political drama by Ben Brown and is set to be directed by Alan Strachan with Alastair Whatley. It will be filmed as a three-camera recording for online release on the company’s streaming platform, Original Theatre Online, from 15 April until 31 July 2021, with tour dates to be announced soon.
The production is set to star Oliver Ford Davies as Graham Greene, Stephen Boxer as Kim Philby and Sara Crowe as Rufa Philby.
Moscow 1987 and the cold war begins to thaw. After declining his offer for more than 30 years, novelist Graham Greene travels into the heart of the Soviet Union to meet with his old MI6 boss, Kim Philby. Under the watchful eye of Kim’s Russian wife, Rufa, the two men set about catching up on old times. With a new world order breaking out around them, how much did the writer of The Third Man know about Philby’s secret life as a spy and did Philby betray his friend as well as his country?
Talking about the production, Alastair Whatley, Artistic Director of Original Theatre Company, said, “I am thrilled that we are producing Ben’s fantastic new play with such a wonderful cast and creative team. The plan was to open this in front of audiences at the end of March, but alas, once again, plans have changed. Instead of cancelling, we will now film the production at the beautiful Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, releasing the play to our audiences around the world, before then returning to stages across the UK as soon as theatres re-open.”
A Splinter of Ice follows on from the company’s productions of Sebastian Faulks’s Birdsong Online, Louise Coulthard’s Watching Rosie, Torben Betts’s Apollo 13: The Dark Side of The Moon and Philip Franks’s The Haunting of Alice Bowles, as well as the filmed productions of Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art and Ali Milles’s The Croft.
The production will feature designs by Michael Pavelka, with original music composed and sound designed by Max Pappenheim, lighting designed by Jason Taylor and casting by Ellie Collyer-Bristow CDG.
To find out more about A Splinter of Ice visit: https://originaltheatreonline.com/productions/20/a-splinter-of-ice