Spy Plays

Two seductions, two deaths, one apartment, sixty years apart. Inspired by real life mysteries: David Thame’s acclaimed one-act thriller Kompromat in a double bill with his tense and atmospheric new play, London/Budapest. In London/Budapest it’s 1955. Adam de Hegedus, the secretive author of Britain’s first gay bestseller The Heart in Exile, takes his afternoon sauna pick-up to a Pimlico flat. But this is the cold war: Burgess and Maclean have just defected to the Soviet Union. Espionage is everywhere, paranoia too. And a casual encounter can cost you your life. Kompromat ? a hit at the Vaults Festival last year ? is inspired by the 2010 death of Gareth Williams, whose body was found zipped into a sports bag in the bathroom of his Pimlico flat. Its protagonist is brilliant with numbers, but hopeless at reading people ? including the beautiful young man he has invited into his bedroom.