Pack of Lies, Menier Chocolate Factory

Would you betray your best friends for the good of your country? What’s more important, personal or national loyalty? That’s precisely the dilemma that faces the protagonists of Hugh Whitemore’s Pack of Lies, coming to the Menier Chocolate Factory in September.

Based on a true story, the play centres on the Jacksons, a nice, normal, middle-class English couple who are firm friends with the Krogers, their Canadian neighbours. The Jacksons soon become embroiled in a matter of national security when a police detective comes knocking, politely requesting to use their house as a surveillance base. The aim? To investigate the Krogers, suspected spies for the Russians.

This is Pack of Lies’ first London revival since its premiere in 1983, when real-life husband and wife Judi Dench and Michael Williams played the Jacksons. And they’re keeping it in the family: Finty Williams, the couple's daughter, now stars in the part her mother originated, alongside veteran stage actor Jasper Britton as sinister agent Stewart.

The play was adapted by Whitemore from his own Act of Betrayal, first broadcast on TV in 1971 as part of the BBC’s Play for Today. With Russian spying again becoming sadly relevant, this is a timely revival, and sure to be hard-hitting.