Emma Rice is bringing Brief Encounter back to the West End: 'I'm not sticking two fingers up at critics'

Emma Rice is leaving her role at Shakespeare’s Globe next year following a row over her modern lighting methods. Today she reveals her next project — a revival of her hi-tech version of Brief Encounter, complete with special effects and big screen film footage.

But Rice, who announced her departure as artistic director from the Bankside theatre a year ago, has denied that she is “sticking a finger up” to her critics by bringing the show back to the Empire Cinema on Haymarket.

“I just do my work, I tell stories,” she said. “Brief Encounter is a hi-tech show but it is also one of the most beautiful, human shows.”

Rice made her name a decade ago with the play, based on the 1945 film about an unfulfilled love affair starring Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson.

The show’s revival stars Jim Sturgeon and Isabel Pollen in the lead roles. They appear on stage and in newly filmed scenes created to replicate the feel of the original black and white movie.

Rice said: “It is a very playful production because we play with the form of cinema, with all the projected material and what you can do with theatre and songs and movement. I think this gives me the opportunity to do what I love, which is mixing up the form and finding something fresh and surprising.

“It feels like we’re asking the audience to question what their relationship is to reality and fantasy — that is what theatre offers. These are real people in front of you. You can feel their breath and really feel the emotion coming off them — and at the same time play with the hi-tech form. It is fantastic.”

The show opens in March, a few weeks before Rice’s last day at the Globe. Last October it was announced that she would be leaving in April 2018, with the theatre’s board saying her use of “light and sound technology” did not fit with its more traditional view of how Shakespeare’s work should be presented.

Ms Rice, who has also launched a theatre company called Wise Children, said: “It has been a pretty dramatic year, shall we say, and my work is what keeps me sane and not only sane but happy.

“This is a really joyful show and its a really joyful opportunity to bring it back. It is just over the water from the Globe so it keeps me in the right area so there are loads of plusses.”

Brief Encounter opens at the Empire Cinema on Haymarket on March 2. Tickets on sale today at briefencounterwestend.com or from the box office on 0844 8717628