An Englishman Abroad

In the 1930's, a number of young men at Cambridge University were recruited as Soviet spies. They became known by the KGB as the 'magnificent five' but were better known in England as the Cambridge spy ring. They were not motivated by financial gain, but by the belief that capitalism was corrupt and that the Soviet Union offered a better model for society. They all managed to obtain jobs in the English civil service in very important positions, as diplomats and even, in the case of the informal leader of the ring Kim Philby, as Head of 'anti-Communist counter espionage' and Secretary of the British Embassy in Washington. They spent their working lives passing valuable information to the Soviet Union. They were clever men but also had the connections and class to get them into these jobs and they also had absolute belief that what they were doing, was right. However, it should not be forgotten that they were traitors and responsible for the torture and deaths of many Western agents. Alan Bennett's one act play is about a chance meeting in Moscow in 1958 between the actress Coral Browne and one of the Cambridge Spies of the Cold War era, who was Guy Burgess. He was a British Diplomat/traitor who defected to Russia with one of his fellow traitors, Donald McLean in 1951. Although they did not work together and did not like each other particularly, they were forever yoked together by the Press and became infamously known as 'Burgess and McLean'. The play is more about Burgess the exile than Burgess the Spy. A complimentary light supper will be provided at the end of each performance. This is Beaumaris Theatre's entry in the One Act Play Festivals this year.