Adapted for the stage by Emma Rice, this award-winning production of Noël Coward's Brief Encounter breathes new life into his most haunting of love stories.

Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter is remembered as one of the most haunting love stories on screen ever. Drawing on the characteristic wit and musicality of Kneehigh, Emma Rice, former Joint Artistic Director of the Company, has adapted Coward’s classic 1945 screenplay, and the one-act play Still Life on which it was based, into a richly theatrical, imaginative and vibrant piece of theatre. From an original idea by David Pugh & Dafydd Rogers, Kneehigh’s production received its world premiere in 2008. This edition is published to coincide with the production’s run live at the Empire Cinema in London’s West End for 2018, co-produced by Steve and Jenny Wiener and The Old Vic. With an updated foreword by Emma Rice. ‘Surely the most enchanting work of stagecraft ever inspired by a movie.’ Ben Brantley, The New York Times ‘Moving, funny, gripping and even at its most inventive, true to the original and its all-English heart’ The Times

"A first-class return to romance" - Telegraph

"A delicate, whimsical creation. Exquisite" - New York Times

"Ms Rice and her wonderful company have made it possible to embrace Brief Encounter once more with feeling..." - New York Times