Our Man in Havana, written by Graham Greene and published in 1958, is one of the funniest and best spy novels ever written. Our Man in Havana: Title

Mr. Wormold: Uh --- I don’t know, sir. He said that it’s more secure in case anyone barged in. He kept the tap running while speaking to me, to confuse the mike, he said. I said I didn’t want the job, but he insisted. Then he shoved me into a closet and walked away.People similar to himself had done this, men who allowed themselves to be recruited while sitting in lavatories, who opened hotel doors with other men's keys and received instructions in secret ink and in novel uses for Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. There was always another side to a joke, the side of the victim." The title uses a classic title archetype, the Protagonist, being a reference to Wormold, who MI6 think is ‘their man in Havana’. Dr Hasselbacher is listening to the complaints of Mr. Wormold, the sales representative for the Phastkleaners company in Cuba: his business is going nowhere, his daughter is spending more than he earns, his wife has left him and there is no point to his existence.

A movie of Our Man in Havana was released in 1959, directed by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness. The film is faithful to the novel, making only minor changes and adding some broader comic moments. Fiendish, isn’t it?’ the chief said… I believe we may be on to something so big that the H-bomb will become a conventional weapon." I think Wormold and Hasselbacher represent post-war Britain - tired and without any motive or passion to go on, conceding hegemony to America. But I doubt whether Greene was a patriot. His attitude could be reflected in these lines by Wormold - “ I don't care a damn about men who are loyal to the people who pay them, to organizations...I don't think even my country means all that much. There are many countries in our blood, aren't there, but only one person. Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?”Television credits include: It’s A Sin; The Crown; EastEnders; WPC 56; Doctors; The Bill; Steel River Blues; Murder Investigation Team; Dream Team and Footballers Wives. Mr. Wormold: I was drinking with my old friend Dr. Hassellbacher at Sloppy Joe’s. Agent Hawthorne was there. He corralled me into the Gents and suggested to me that I should join the Secret Service. Our Man in Havana was written in 1958, and set in Cuba before the missile crisis of 1962. In some ways the book feels very reminiscent of spy stories dating from World War II, and in others, such as the parts of the plot about missile installations, it seems to anticipate coming events. Smyth, Denis, "Our Man in Havana, Their Man in Madrid: Literary Invention in Espionage Fact and Fiction", Spy Fiction, Spy Films and Real Intelligence, ( Wesley K. Wark, ed.), London: Frank Cass, 1991, pp. 117–135.