The novels of Graham Greene (1904-1991) have always seemed naturals for dramatic adaptation. Greene often used audience-friendly fictional forms – thriller, romance, spy story – and, himself a prolific playwright and ­screenwriter, instinctively shaped books in the three-act structure (set-up, complication, resolution) favoured by theatre and cinema.

The stage version of Greene’s 1938 novel Brighton Rock that started a tour at the Theatre Royal York last month is at least the book’s sixth major British dramatisation.