The Ministry of Fear

Theatre Alibi has a thing about espionage. Company writer Daniel Jamieson recently tackled Michael Frayn's Spies and now he turns his attention to Graham Greene's spy thriller set during the London Blitz. Nikki Sved's production is strong on atmosphere. Its sculptural design suggests broken beams and twisted metal, and there are the drifting, smoky sounds of an onstage band. It captures the dislocated and fevered sense of a wartime London where life and death sit cheek by jowl. Arthur Rowe has served his time, but not expunged his guilt at killing his beloved, ill wife. He visits a fortune-teller at a church fete who mistakes him for someone else and gives him the correct weight in the guess-the-weight-of-the-cake competition. Soon Rowe has a cake with a top-secret ingredient, German spies on his tail and someone trying to poison his tea. It's fun, but sits uncomfortably between comic and psychologically serious – it lacks the comic panache of Patrick Barlow's The 39 Steps or the emotional acuity of a Hitchcock thriller. Clarity of storytelling is too often sacrificed to the self-consciously inventive staging. Chris Bianchi's bemused and agonised Arthur provides emotional clout, but some of the cast overdo the silly walks, silly faces and false moustaches. I'm not sure why Theatre Alibi chose this novel to adapt.