The brutal business of espionage and the danger faced by Britain’s agents is dramatically brought to the stage with John le Carre’s The Spy Who Came In From The Cold at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre.

Adapted brilliantly for the stage by David Eldrige, this is not the glamorous Technicolor world of James Bond but the harsh reality of spies working in enemy countries risking torture and death if they are caught.

The play is set in 1963, the time of the Cold War between Britain and Russia, when an MI6 officer, George Blake, was sentenced to 42 years for spying for the Soviets, and Philby, Burgess and Maclean, also MI6 men, defected to Russia armed with information that put our country in danger.

Le Carre has highlighted the workings of MI6 with fictional characters, a mix of grim government officials, foreign spies, communists and agents. His hero is Fiedler - a stunning performance by Philip Arditti - a tired, washed-out former spy who pleads he just wants to “come out of the cold” and go home.

His gently-spoken but ruthless boss George Smiley - John Ramm, outstanding in the role - wants him to do one more job. He asks Fiedler “Are you tired of spying?”, but even the offer of a £15,000 pay-off won’t sway him until Smiley says his assignment is to kill his old enemy, Mundt, a former Nazi SS officer now working in Russia, and played with quiet menace by Gunnar Cauthery.

Fiedler, by now a shambling mess, gets beaten up and lands in prison before going undercover as an assistant in an English library. He falls in love with his beautiful colleague Liz Gold - a moving Agnes O’Casey - but he is in despair when she disappears.

He goes to Germany to look for her but when he arrives is asked to be a witness when his enemy, Mundt, is put on trial. He undergoes harsh cross-examination by the man known as Control - Ian Drysdale, a powerful performance - without breaking but is shocked and bewildered when his boss Smiley begins defending Mundt. He realises he has been betrayed and it will lead to a brutal climax in the shadow of the Berlin Wall.

With strong direction by Jeremy Herrin and a superb cast, the play mirrors the secretive and terrifying world of spying while creating a memorable night in the theatre.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold runs until September 21.

Sheila Checkley