Brief Encounter at the Royal Exchange Theatre
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
The Royal Exchange Christmas production is always a theatrical festive highlight and this year is no different – Emma Rice’s smash-hit adaptation of Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter comes to town.
Layered with wit, warmth and toe-tapping music, Brief Encounter is a heart-stopping story of forbidden love.
Happening as part of the Royal Exchange Autumn/ Winter Season, Emma Rice’s inventive and heart-wrenching translation of the Noël Coward classic is a romantic masterpiece layered with drama and passion. Based on the iconic 1945 film, directed by David Lean and written by Coward, Brief Encounter was inspired by Coward’s earlier one-act play, Still Life, first staged in 1936. Praised for its playfulness and innovation, Emma Rice’s stage adaptation of Brief Encounter was first performed by Kneehigh in 2008 – we’re thrilled that a revival of this modern classic will be performed in Manchester this Christmas.
Layered with wit, warmth and toe-tapping music, Brief Encounter is a heart-stopping story of forbidden love. Housewife Laura and local doctor Alec first find each other in a bustling railway station, a place where the rest of the world is just passing through. Bittersweet and hopelessly hooked on one another, they fall wildly in love and embark on an elegantly awkward and forbidden love affair.
Directed by former Royal Exchange Artistic Director Sarah Frankcom, Brief Encounter stars musical theatre performer Baker Mukasa, straight from his role in the Olivier Award-winning musical Standing at the Sky’s Edge, and Hannah Azuonye, who appeared in the West-End transfer of Girl from the North Country. The cast is completed by a super versatile multi-rolling cast of five, Matthew Allen, Georgia Frost, Richard Glaves, Christina Modestou and Ida Regan.
Marking the 50th anniversary of Coward’s death, Rice’s timely and unique version of the iconic work showcases the playwright’s extraordinary skill, both in writing and composing.
Marking the 50th anniversary of Coward’s death, Rice’s timely and unique version of the iconic work showcases the playwright’s extraordinary skill, both in writing and composing. Bursting with a celebratory programme of show tunes taken from Coward’s exceptional songbook, Brief Encounter will feature live jazz musicians on stage and a beautiful arrangement by Musical Director Matthew Malone.
Of the show, Sarah Frankcom told us, “Remembering Noël Coward in this 50th anniversary year allows us to really foreground his mastery as a remarkable songwriter responsible for delivering and performing some of the most iconic songs of the last 100 years. I’m really looking forward to creating a production that allows these enduring characters to inhabit the world of the song and lets us understand the inside of their hearts.”
Bursting with a celebratory programme of show tunes taken from Coward’s exceptional songbook.
Sweeping into the Royal Exchange’s stunning in-the-round theatre for six sweet weeks, Brief Encounter brings a lot of heart and has been billed as the perfect winter warmer for “all incurable romantics this Christmas”.
