Inside Director Simon Evans’ Extraordinary Journey to the West End with Cyrano
Published on 24 June 2026
Not long ago somebody called writer and director Simon Evans, whose beguiling and funny hit RSC production of Cyrano de Bergarac opens in the West End this month, enquiring about whether he could write a radio show. After they had been talking productively for a while, the caller said, 'It's funny that I’ve found you, because the person I was originally trying to find was Simon Evans, the magician.
'Well, you won’t believe it,' said Evans, ‘but you have found him. That’s me too.’
Evans has had what might be called an eclectic career. He is indeed a magician: his clever and moving 2016 show The Vanishing Man explored reality, truth and self-deception through the story of magician Hugo Cedar, who vanished on London Bridge in 1930 and was never seen again.
But he is also a director with credits including Secret Cinema and Inside No. 9 Stage/Fright as well as directing Andrew Scott in The Dazzle, Orlando Bloom in Killer Joe and Toby Stephens and Claire Skinner in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg.
Writing is increasingly part of his portfolio of skills; he is co-writer with poet and playwright Debris Stevenson on Cyrano, a version of Edmond Rostand’s comedy about the verbally dextrous soldier—played here by the wonderful Adrian Lester, who hides his love for Roxanne because of his large nose, which he believes disfigures him, instead using his poetry to court her on behalf of a rival.
Oh, and Evans is an actor too. He appeared in Staged as himself alongside David Tennant and Michael Sheen for the two series of the lockdown BBC hit, which he also co-created, wrote and directed. You’ll never know quite what he might do next.
Staged, and the attention it got during the pandemic has been a game-changer for Evans in terms of profile, but he says that for quite a long period during his career he has been prone to insecurity, perhaps a little like Cyrano himself.
‘This can be such a difficult industry to navigate, and there have been times when I have wondered whether I was good enough, and of course you feel insecure and have envy as other people progress, and you wonder whether maybe you should have made other choices, maybe more myopically concentrated on being a director. But now I think the eclecticism is paying off. But it has sometimes felt hard.”
He adds, 'We all have Cyrano’s nose, don’t we? We all have this thing which holds us back, which makes us worry that we won’t be loveable and which makes us lonely and isolated. To some degree we all go through life wearing masks, being afraid and wondering whether we are good enough.'
Evans first directed a version of Cyrano at the tiny White Bear pub theatre back in 2010, but it was after Adrian Lester came to see his production of Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar in 2017, a staging starring Lenny Henry that drew parallels with Brecht’s Chicago gangster and Donald Trump, that the pair started talking about working together. They settled on Cyrano, but then in 2019 Jamie Lloyd staged his eye-catching rap version with James McAvoy.
'We did think it was a shame, but I knew Jamie and I knew his aesthetic, and I knew it was very different from mine, so I always felt it would just mean that ours would take a little longer to come to production.’
It has, but when Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, co-artistic directors of the RSC, got wind of the collaboration between Evans and Lester, they jumped at the opportunity to be on board. Their faith was justified. The production opened in Stratford-upon-Avon last autumn to ecstatic reviews but, more importantly, wild audience delight.
'The play is such an open invitation to feel something in the theatre,’ explains Evans. “It has such extraordinary tonal circuitry through comedy, sincerity and an ending in our version which is genuinely very moving, and I’m very proud of it because it disarms people. I think people want to go to the theatre and have an emotional experience, and this gives them one. The world is full of people shouting opinions at them, but what I’ve seen with audiences in Cyrano is people taking the opportunity to let their guard down, open their hearts and feel something, whether that is laughter or joy or surprise or sadness.’
For Evans, bringing playwright and grime poet Debris Stevenson on board was crucial, ensuring that the words really do fly.
“I had no reservations about doing the dramaturgy, the dialogue and the characterisation, but there are moments when Adrian’s Cyrano really has to let fly with the poetry, and I needed those moments to be transcendent, and I was worried that if I couldn’t achieve that a crucial part of the play would be lost. The initial idea was that Debris would focus on the poetic bits and I’d focus on the rest, but she’s so brilliant that what we were doing just started to interweave, and now I’m really proud that some of the jokes are hers and some of the poetry is mine.”
Evans has always been a difficult theatre maker to pigeonhole, and perhaps in the past that has counted against him. But Cyrano embodies all his skills as a writer, a director and, indeed, as a bit of a theatrical magician.
‘There are', he says, ‘functional similarities between magic and directing theatre, which is misdirection as a set of rules for staging, which is about where you draw the eye and how you control the focus.’
How you control the focus of a career in theatre is sometimes harder to steer. Evans now finds himself in the happy position where his eclecticism is bearing fruit.
'Last year there was a week during which I wondered whether I’d like to write a novel, direct a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas and make an Apple TV show, and I thought, 'This is fun. I like being this person.’ I feel very lucky."
Cyrano de Bergarac plays at the Noel Coward Theatre until 5 September 2026. Book your tickets today.
By Lyn Gardner
Lyn Gardner is an acclaimed theatre journalist and former critic with decades of experience covering British theatre, from off-West End and fringe theatre to major West End productions.