On one level, it’s a very simple story, really: in Havana, James Wormold (Jack Ashton) has a shop selling vacuum cleaners. Not a concession space within a department store – an entire shop selling only vacuums. Funnily enough, that doesn’t make enough money for him to support his daughter Milly’s (Jodie Steele) relative extravagance. Thus, he is recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) by an agent, Hawthorne (Bob Barrett). At some point later Wormold, as he is more often than not referred to, is told to recruit some spies himself. For reasons not entirely clear from this stage adaptation, he doesn’t do so, choosing instead to engage his imagination and ‘invent’ some associates, putting in expenses for their ‘activity’, then pocketing the income, once received from the British, for himself and for Milly.
So far, so straightforward. But there are a number of caveats. One is that MI6 decides he should have a secretary, Beatrice Severn (also Steele, such that Ashton’s Wormold raises one of the biggest laughs of the evening from the audience when he says she looks familiar), another is that Wormold’s imaginings are subject to real-world coincidences and/or circumstances. After all, how many people called Raul or Theresa would there be in Havana during World War Two, or indeed in any era?
Perhaps the British characters, plus a World War One veteran, Dr Hasselbacher (also Barrett) contributed to the show not having a particularly Cuban vibe about it: it might as well have been set in Italy or Australia, or anywhere fairly hot. Windsor itself, come to think of it, given the ongoing heatwave on press night – the show’s programme is thick and compact enough to double up as more than a serviceable fan. Leon Ockenden’s most memorable character (there was a lot of multi-rolling going on here, for those who like that sort of thing) was Captain Segura, the local police chief, whose character provided some insight into life in Havana, and how the police there prioritised which crimes to investigate.
There were some very quick costume changes, so well done to everyone involved in executing those. In the end, considerable fun is poked at British espionage and its apparent gullibility in accepting Wormold’s ‘findings’, as well as its ultimate response to it. The details, however, are somewhat less easy to decipher than the macro-level narrative, not helped by a supposedly grown-up Milly, old enough to have at least one suitor for marriage, still behaving as though she were still in single figures. It went with the storyline, perhaps – what good is a spy plot that is too easy to decode? – but there was a bit too much in the way of asides to the audience to explain a narrative point. I venture to suggest the story might have breathed easier if it were told without so much embellishment.
It’s fairly lengthy for a play (two hours and thirty-eight minutes according to the theatre’s signage) and, especially in the second half of the second half, it felt like, to quote Eugene O’Neill, a long day’s journey into night. It seemed to me to be a largely faithful adaptation of a Graham Greene novel – perhaps too much so, in the sense that it started to get bogged down in the details. There is such a thing as having to try to keep up with a show with so much going on that it is tempting to give up. A well-drilled cast does well with what they are given in a production that is equally bewildering as it is assured.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Struggling financially to support his spoiled daughter, Wormold is recruited by MI6 agent Hawthorne to be a spy. Lacking any actual spy skills or intentions, Wormold fabricates an entire network of fictional agents and reports, using his imagination and local bar conversations.
His absurd reports, claiming to depict secret weapons, are taken seriously by MI6, leading to real-world consequences as the Cuban government grows suspicious.
Jack Ashton – Wormold/Voice 1
Bob Barrett – Voice 2
Leon Ockenden – Voice 3
Jodie Steele – Voice 4
James Leeman and Elinor Solly – Understudies
By Graham Greene
Adapted by Clive Francis
Directed by Philip Wilson
Lighting Design by Nick Richings
Sound Design by Andy Graham
Set and Costume Design by Julie Godfrey
OUR MAN IN HAVANA
Theatre Royal Windsor, 1 to 11 July 2026
Tour continues to 5 September 2026
