I didn’t go to TravCon this year, despite being involved in some of the organisation (although Richard and Andy bore the brunt of that), which was a disappointment, because of the change of venue. However, I had good reason not to, as I was enjoying my Christmas present from my better half.
Some of you may know that, alongside science-fiction, espionage stories are a passion of mine. This passion was borne from discovering John le Carré in our school library during my teenage years. I read everything of his that I could find, then started on the BBC TV and other adaptations; A Perfect Spy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People and The Russia House were all big influences. I’ve enjoyed other authors in the genre, but none so much as le Carré. I did find his work engaged me less, post the collapse of the Soviet bloc, but he returned with a vengeance later in the his career when you could feel the anger in his writing for the way that the West was behaving with renditions and compromised ethics.
As an aside, I’ve long since searched for the perfect roleplaying game for that theme, but I’ve yet to find one. I do think that the Berlin hack for Cartel (which will never see the light of day now that Magpie have killed all the extras for the project) that I ran at Revelation 8 possibly came closest, perhaps alongside Cold Shadows (despite it’s flawed mechanics) which I ran at Furnace in 2019.
Anyway, the reason I missed TravCon was that I was in York Grand Opera House watching the theatrical adaptation of ‘The Spy who came in from the Cold”. This was possibly the first le Carré I read (although it may have been ‘A Small Town in Germany’), and it’s not one I’ve revisited except via the film with Richard Burton, and the audio adaptation that the BBC did.
It was really rather brilliantly done, with Ralf Little as a very angry Alec Leamas, and Gráinne Dromgoole as Liz Gold. If you like the genre or the story, you’ll enjoy the performance. The story remains sad, of course, with love betraying Leamas’ operation against the Stasi and driving him on a course to meet his fate.
My only regret on the day was that they didn’t have the T-Shirt with all the espionage related words that le Carré introduced into more common usage in my size, and you don’t seem to be able to order it online.
I wholeheartedly recommend this if you can catch it at a theatre. Fantastic Christmas present too!
18 July 2026
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