What we have with “Red Joan,” British theater director Trevor Nunn‘s adaptation of the inspired-by-a-true-story novel by Jennie Rooney, is a rare case of the old-lady, modern-day framing device being more fun and compelling than the actual story, or as I like to call it, a reverse-“Titanic.” The events that loosely inspired the novel (so loosely that it’s arguable whether Melita Norwood, the real-life counterpart of the eponymous Joan should be mentioned at all, let alone trundled out in Serious End Titles to give the project some legitimacy) were most extraordinary for the way they ended: with an 87-year-old Norwood confessing to decades of treason to the assembled media on the front lawn of her suburban English home.

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