by Noël Coward in a version by Emma Rice. Directed by Rob Ellis
Wednesday 15 – Saturday 18 and Tuesday 21 – Saturday 25 April at 7.30pm.
Matinées on Saturdays 18 and 25 April at 3pm.
At the Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington
I love you. You love me too. It’s no use pretending it hasn’t happened.
Laura and Alec find each other by chance at a railway station. What begins as a fleeting act of kindness soon spirals into an all-consuming love – forbidden, passionate, and impossible to escape – as two ordinary lives are irrevocably changed by one extraordinary meeting.
Emma Rice’s acclaimed stage version of Brief Encounter was adapted from Noël Coward’s screenplay for David Lean’s iconic 1945 film. Running in the West End in 2008 and 2018, Rice masterfully weaves together theatre, music, and the magic of cinema. With renditions of Coward’s beloved songs and a cast of colourful characters, Brief Encounter captures the impossible pull of the heart, in the most unforgettable love story.
Buy Tickets
Wednesday 15 April at 7.30pm
Thursday 16 April at 7.30pm
Friday 17 April at 7.30pm
Saturday 18 April at 3pm
Saturday 18 April at 7.30pm
Tuesday 21 April at 7.30pm
Wednesday 22 April at 7.30pm
Thursday 23 April at 7.30pm
Friday 24 April at 7.30pm
Saturday 25 April at 3pm
Saturday 25 April at 7.30pm
Cast
Laura : Victoria Flint
Alec : Dom Ward
Fred : James Taverner
Myrtle : Deborah Ley
Albert : Matthew Vickers
Beryl : Imogen Front
Stanley : Tom Lafferty
Dolly : Fiyin Ifebogun
The Band
Jonathan Norris : Keyboard
Colin Guthrie : Keyboard/Ukulele/Accordion
Phillip Ley : Double Bass
Peta Barker : Percussion
Production Team
Director : Rob Ellis
Costume Design : Ivy Thorne
Lighting Design : Stephen Ley
Musical Director : Jonathan Norris
Stage Manager : Sarah Ambrose
Assistant Directors : Emily Hassan, Sabrina Robinson
 Dom Ward trained at Mountview Academy and has been with the Tower since he was press-ganged into a production of The Entertainer in 2001. After a brief career in musicals including A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Hot Mikado and Guys and Dolls, he strayed into ‘serious’ drama, including Stanley in The Birthday Party, David in After the Dance (twice) and numerous wildly accented characters in The 39 Steps. Most recently, he showed his very serious side as Dame JoJo Jangles in the Tower’s Rapunzel. Dom has also directed a number of acclaimed productions for the Tower, most recently last year’s 5-star revival of Flare Path. |
 James Taverner is excited to be performing in his third production with the Tower Theatre, after appearing in After Life and Labour of Love. He has also recently performed in productions with SEDOS, South London Theatre, and KDC Theatre. He is a regular improv performer and keyboard player with the groups Comedasians, Instant Noodling, The Pretend Company, and AdLibretto and has run improv workshops here at the Tower. |
 Matthew Vickers has been an acting member of the Tower Theatre for many years having performed in numerous plays including Coyote on a Fence, Clybourne Park, An Enemy of the People, Arcadia, Sweat and more recently PMQ, Death and the Maiden, The Real Inspector Hound and The Chimes. He is looking forward to playing Albert, a rather cheeky fellow. |
 Imogen Front is thrilled to be taking on her third acting role at the Tower in Brief Encounter. Other Tower credits include Meg in The Chimes and Martha in The Secret Garden. She also assistant directed last autumn’s Black Men Walking. Prior to joining the Tower, Imogen trained at Central School of Speech and Drama, and has acted in a range of stage productions, including Dahling You Were Marvellous, The God of Carnage, Present Laughter and A Woman of No Importance. She also has extensive audio experience, with roles in The Shell Seekers and Chicken Soup with Barley for BBC Radio 4, 1984 for Audible, and several audiobooks for the RNIB. Most recently she starred as Mary and Georgiana in Pride and Prejudice for BBC Radio 4. As a lifelong Coward fan, she can’t wait to introduce audiences to this version of one of his most famous stories. |
 Tom Lafferty is an actor, director, writer and live-art performer/curator having trained in the latter at Queen Mary University of London. This will be his fourth Tower production having previously appeared in Crime and Punishment (2024), Moby Dick (2025) and Rapunzel (2025). Outside of the Tower, Tom is an Edinburgh Fringe regular and recently tried his hand in immersive theatre having played TV’s Little Alex Horne for six months in Taskmaster: The Live Experience. |
 After years of exploring acting in her adolescence, Fiyin Ifebogun studied BA Drama at the University of Essex, graduating with First-Class Honours. In 2020, she took part in the Tower Theatre’s Virtual Tower series. Her acting bug was reawakened in 2025, leading her back to the Tower’s doors as Jess/Jeanie in Rockets And Blue Lights. She then went on to play First Girl in Blood Wedding. Fiyin is looking forward to her third onstage show, Brief Encounter! |
 Since joining the Tower in the early ’90s, Jonathan Norris has been involved in one way or another in over 75 productions. He has acted – Thomas Boleyn in Wolf Hall, Inspector Hubbard in Dial M For Murder, Alfred Doolittle in Pygmalion amongst many others. He music-directed A Little Night Music and Guys and Dolls, and has written and/or played musical additions on keyboard or trombone in a number of other shows. He has happy memories of playing Ernest in Bedroom Farce; arranging and music-directing Nell Gwynn; playing Sorin in The Seagull in the new Tower’s first season (2018), Mr Walker in London Wall in 2022, and Ben Weatherstaff in last year’s The Secret Garden. The theatrical première of The Chimes (2024) saw him manfully tackling a virtuoso piano part! |
 Rob Ellis is a freelance theatre producer and fundraiser, originally from Yorkshire, who has been a Tower member for ten years. For the Tower he has directed Clybourne Park, The 39 Steps, The Real Inspector Hound, The Chimes and The Merry Wives of Windsor (which toured to Paris). He also recently acted for the first time in a long time, when the Tower toured Shakespeare In Love to Pykard’s Hall in Suffolk. Rob runs Relish Theatre, a LGBTQ+ theatre company, and is currently producing fundraisers for the Property Litigation Association. He was previously Producer at the Actors’ Church in Covent Garden. |