A Covert Affair - Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025

Set in Budapest at the height of the Cold War, this sharp and playful production follows two operatives - Comrade (Ella Sheree) and Agent (Charlie Turner) - who are tasked with a mission of seduction and espionage: the exchange of state secrets under the guise of intimacy.

From the outset, both characters are knowingly drawn from the archetypes of the era. Agent is the buttoned-up Brit, fretting over matters of class as much as matters of state, while Comrade is the archetypal Russian honey trap, trained in allure but carrying her own vulnerabilities beneath the surface. Overseeing them are their Wires, older agents who attempt, with varying degrees of success, to instill discipline, duty, and the cool detachment their protégés so conspicuously lack.

The show’s great strength lies in how it reframes the familiar tropes of spycraft through the lens of romance. The comedy of espionage is filtered through the rhythms of dating: clandestine exchanges over cafés and park benches become first encounters, awkward in their formality yet charged with possibility. As the pair graduate to bedrooms, their physical entanglement mirrors the deepening complications of emotional connection. In the process, seduction gives way to genuine affection, and the game of intelligence sharing collapses into a confession booth of secrets with every classified scrap willingly handed over in the name of love. When their mutual betrayals leave them pursued by the very organisations that trained them, the central dilemma crystallises: where does loyalty lie, with flag or with heart? 

The show unfolds in distinct segments of the seduction with each scene punctuated by blackouts that, in a delightful surprise for a fringe production, drew applause every time. Written by Alex Macfarlane and Charlie Turner, the piece knowingly nods to the shadowy world of John le Carré, George Smiley, The Circus, and the weary tradecraft of Cold War duplicity but does so with a wry, comic eye. Rather than mire itself in grey trench coats and bureaucratic gloom, the writing revels in absurdity, highlighting the thin line between espionage and intimacy, deception and desire. This is a piece that understands its source material, pokes fun at it, and yet finds real emotional weight in the absurd stakes of Cold War romance.

Performance is everything in a play so rooted in chemistry, and both leads deliver superbly. Sheree brings Russian wit, warmth, and a subversive edge to Comrade, turning what could have been a cliché into a character of depth. Turner balances dry humour with vulnerability, his Agent’s stiff-upper-lip exterior cracking in a way that is both hilarious and oddly touching. Together, their interplay has the audience leaning in and rooting for them even as their choices grow more reckless.

Lee Hutchison

4.5/5

This performance was watched on the final day of the run