Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Before the Coffee Gets Cold description

About the Show

In a narrow back alley in Tokyo, the café Funiculi Funicula lets its customers travel to a moment of their choosing. The rules are strict: they cannot leave their seat, nothing they do in the past will change the present, and they must be back before their coffee gets cold. Before the Coffee Gets Cold follows the people who take that chance, from a woman hoping to mend things with a boyfriend who has moved abroad to a nurse searching for a letter from her husband.

The play is a new adaptation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi's bestselling novel and receives its world premiere at the Lyric Hammersmith. Kawaguchi first wrote the story as a stage play in 2010 before publishing it as a novel in 2015; the English translation by Geoffrey Trousselot followed in 2019, along with several sequels and a 2018 Japanese film, Cafe Funiculi Funicula.

Cast and Creatives

The stage adaptation is by Conor McPherson, the Irish playwright and director whose play The Weir won the Olivier Award for Best Play in 1999 and transferred from the Royal Court to the West End and Broadway. His other work includes Shining City, The Seafarer, The Night Alive and the musical Girl from the North Country, which he wrote and directed around the songs of Bob Dylan.

Why You Should Watch It

A time-travel story about regret, love and second chances, adapted from a novel read around the world. Book your tickets for the world premiere.

Playing at Lyric Hammersmith (venue info)