With John Key's stewardship of the GCSB, farce might be the appropriate form for a Kiwi spy story. But in the hands of playwright Dean Parker the intrigues swirling around New Zealand's Moscow Embassy in 1947 provide the raw material for a sophisticated, entertaining and intelligent piece of theatre.
Although the story is fictional, the characters are based on real people and Parker's easy familiarity with the bewildering cross-currents of Soviet politics gives the drama an utterly convincing ring of authenticity.
Embassy life in the post-war era is shown to be cultured, dissolute and frequently inebriated. The urbane environment stands in stark contrast to droll recollections of New Zealand and the ironic distance between the two worlds provide some wonderful moments of humour.
The play opens with the scintillating wit one finds in Noel Coward but broadens to include erudite detours into Russian literature and charming musical items ranging from The Mikado through to lewd drinking songs.
The central spy thriller is deftly structured but sometimes feels neglected in favour of political discourse and considerable effort is expended on a rehash of the standard left-wing apologetics for Stalinist totalitarianism.
