Kneehigh Second Time Lucky with Brief Encounter???

Kneehigh got mixed reviews for its adaptation of Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death, premiered earlier this year at the National. But that hasn’t stopped the company from applying its physical technique to another British film classic from the Forties: Brief Encounter. In David Lean’s 1945 weepie, Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard meet by chance at a railway station buffet and valiantly resist the urge to cheat on their respective spouses with one another.

The film has previously been adapted for the stage – Jenny Seagrove and Christopher Cazenove starred in the West End in 2000 (See News, 23 Aug 2000) – and was itself based on Noel Coward’s one-act 1935 stage play Still Life.

The Kneehigh adaptation, care of artistic director Emma Rice, is now at Birmingham Rep until 20 October 2007, and then moves to Leeds’ West Yorkshire Playhouse from 22 October to 10 November. After that, Londoners may also get a chance to see Brief Encounter. According to the Daily Mail, the buzz on the show is hot, with West End theatre owners and producers hopping trains to the Midlands to assess its transfer potential.

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