The Lady Vanishes

The Tyne Theatre & Opera House

ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S classic 1938 film of lies, lost ladies and locomotives has been brought vividly to life in a new adaptation of The Lady Vanishes by Mark Simpson.

Stylishly staged, with an ingenious revolving set, designed by Maurice Rubens, that doubles as a hotel on the Swiss border and a steam locomotive, it is bursting with intrigue, espionage, romance and drama.

Stranded in a hotel after an avalanche, a cosmopolitan group of eccentric characters are desperate to return to London. They embark on a potentially perilous journey aboard a trans-alpine express train.

Having suffered a bang to the head at the hotel, Iris (Penelope Rawlins), a society beauty, is befriended by an endearing elderly governess, Miss Froy (Jane Evers). But, when the old lady mysteriously disappears and none of the other passengers acknowledge that she ever existed, Iris decides to investigate.

She manages to persuade Gilbert (Darrell Brockis), a handsome young musicologist that she is not hallucinating, despite the diagnosis of the sinister Dr Hartz (Terry Molloy), and he assists in the search for Miss Froy.

The ensuing events are a sophisticated mix of action, deceit, comedy and mystery. There are no weak links amongst the stellar cast, many of whom are required to double-up as other characters.

Mark Sterling’s direction ensures that the momentum is maintained throughout and that the audience are kept guessing right until the very end. The Lady Vanishes is a production that entertains and enthrals in equal measure.

Steve Burbridge.

I Ought to be in Pictures isn’t one of Neil Simon’s better-known plays, but it follows the scientifically proven formula of classics like The Sunshine Boys and The Odd Couple: when apparently incompatible individuals live in close proximity they generate friction, which creates sparks of comedy gold. 

Herb (Stuart Fox) is a typical Simon character in the Walter Matthau mould, a quarrelsome curmudgeon with a tender heart buried somewhere beneath his grizzly exterior.  He has long escaped the claustrophobic atmosphere of New York to live the dream in the Californian sunshine as a Hollywood screenwriter.  Unfortunately a bad case of writer’s block is causing trouble in his professional life, and commitment-phobia is hacking off his no-strings girlfriend Steffy.

Then a 19-year-old back-packer called Libby turns up on Herb’s doorstep with ambitions of her own to make it big in the film business - with or without her father’s help. 

Stuart Fox as Herb initially delivers a first-rate impression of a grumpy, self-obsessed has-been, but visibly melts with the gradual rediscovery of his paternal feelings.

Elizabeth Carling as Steffy brings real warmth to the witty and wise divorcée who tries to encourage the father-daughter relationship without herself turning into a jealous step-mother.  And no one has carried off white flared trousers with such aplomb since Charley’s Angels.

The real find of the evening is Kirsty Osmon, making a striking professional debut in the role of Libby.  All tomboyish charm and coltish bare legs, Ms Osmon is absolutely convincing as a free spirit who can hike across a continent or tune a car engine, yet who is still clearly very young and vulnerable.  The impromptu midnight rehearsal of her audition speech with only an angle-poise lamp for a spotlight shows how naïve this seemingly streetwise New Yorker remains. 

Paul Wills’ design, a loving homage to the 1970s, shows us Herb’s chaotic life embodied in his scruffy open-plan apartment, with a glimpse of the symbolic citrus trees through a sunny window.

Director Paul Jepson has concentrated on the play’s dramatic implications - in the hands of such an excellent cast the smart one-liners can take care of themselves.

 

I Ought to be in Pictures is on until Saturday 27 February 2009

Prices: £8.00-£18.00 (concessions available)

Eves: Mon-Thurs @ 7.30pm; Fri & Sat @ 8pm

Matinees: Thurs & Sat @ 3pm

Box Office: 0161 236 7110

www.librarytheatre.com

 

Dirty Dusting

The Customs House, South Shields

Until 30 January

Since it premiered in February 2003, Dirty Dusting has enjoyed sell-out runs all over the world and played to hundreds of thousands of people. Now the smash-hit comedy, penned by Ed Waugh and Trevor Wood, has made a triumphant return to the venue that launched it as part of the Customs House’s 15^th anniversary celebration season.

When Gladys, Elsie and Olive discover that they are to be unceremoniously dumped from their cleaning duties as part of a ‘rationalisation’ process in the office block where they work they decide to put their final weekend to good use and boost their pay-offs in the process. A series of ‘wrong number’ dirty phone calls inspires them to set up a phone sex line – The Telephone Belles.

Jean Southern, Gwen Doran and Helen Russell reprise their original roles and deliver their performances with an attack and gusto that belies the fact that the trio have a combined age of 250! Their comedy timing is absolutely spot-on and they don’t miss a single opportunity to shine. Bob Stott, as their bullying boss, Dave, grabs his role with both hands and relentlessly wrings the laughs from it, without ever upstaging the ladies.

Waugh and Wood’s script sparkles with wit and wonderful one-liners and you are almost afraid to laugh too long and loud at one for fear of missing the next. There are many times, though, when it is impossible not to. It is also testament to the skill of the partnership that moments of poignancy and pathos are intertwined with humour and hilarity, giving the girls some great material to work with and further endearing their characters to the audience.

Tickets for this side-splitting show aren’t lying round long enough to gather dust, so make sure you get yours before they are all cleaned out!

STEVE BURBRIDGE.

 

While proper critics have been somewhat disappointed by the play, complaining about intellectual under-nourishment and predictability, The Priory for me was just the thing to see in December and you should all go as well.
(And critics should avoid the word 'chum' - it crept into all the reviews somehow and sat there as a graying linguistic entity).



I loved the production design to begin with: from the John Lewis laps, to the reindeer trophy covered in fairy lights and those big gothic windows staring out to the godforsaken rural nowhere baring ghost. Splendid. 

The costumes were hilarious, spot on and plenty. The picture above doesn't do it justice really, it was more like the Nutcracker meets his Fatal Attraction in a drag-bar. I could linger over the semiotics of a muffin top inflicted by skinny jeans, or how a sky-blue pair of socks might be the perfect finishing touch to a character, but the snob inside me puts a stop to that.  

Onto the play than: I haven't laught so much in theatre in ages. It is just really funny and well acted. The piece was naturally not written for eternety , it is theatre-lite with a few lower notes, its fresh and entertaining and it will be so last year next year.
This carpe diem comedy unites an eclectic mix stereotypical characters: Brigit Jones gone bad and her queer sidekick, who falls short of heterosexual preconceptions, party with Mr Failure and Mrs Power Lesbian cum Mummy Biggest accompanied by dream-pair du joure.

The best reason to go and see The Priory is to attend a New-Year Party and be done with it. Buy the ticket, watch the play, breathe a sigh of relief and tick the midnight-misery with champaign and smudged make-up off your list. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lphmbIPlq9g

Jump!

Live Theatre, Newcastle upon Tyne

To market a play as being ‘played out like a Tarantino movie’ seems a tad egotistical and a rather tall order to fulfil. A quote like that should be used when it can be attributed to a rave review rather than little more than speculative wishful thinking.

That said, Live Theatre is synonymous with producing high-quality drama laced with strong local connections and I was looking forward to a tense, psychological black comedy.

Assembling a cast of extremely talented local actors, including Vicky Elliott, Laura Norton and James Baxter, the ‘English premiere’ of Jump! follows the lives of seven desperate characters during New Year’s Eve on Tyneside.

Good time girls Marie (Vicky Elliott), Dara (Laura Norton) and Hannah (Bronagh Taggart, making her professional debut) knock back the bevvies and bitch while waiting for another girl friend to arrive.

Johhny (James Baxter) and Ross (Harry Hepple) are a couple of guys who have got themselves in too deep with a local heavy and now have to carry out a contract killing to write-off a gambling debt that they cannot repay.

Two strangers, Pearce (Neil Grainger) and Greta (Frances McNamee) are both intent on leaping from Newcastle’s High Level Bridge but, after accidentally discovering each other, they proceed to try to talk one another out of it.

As the story unfolds it becomes apparent that the lives of these seven characters are already intertwined and that each of their lives are about to change forever.

Writer Lisa McGee seems to have ‘borrowed’ some of her ideas – didn’t Helena Bonham Carter and Sam Neill have a similar encounter on a bridge in Alan Ayckbourn’s 1998 movie, The Revengers’ Comedies?

The storyline has a strictly ‘thriller-by-numbers’ feel to it and the twists and turns are easy to anticipate. The script is littered with gratuitous bad language that adds nothing to the development of the narrative and the dialogue is rather clichéd.

There are also some glaringly obvious geographical gaffes that must have been the result of the decision to change the setting of the play from Belfast to Newcastle. These should have been picked up by the production team from the outset – or at the very least during the rehearsal process.

Performers of the calibre of Vicky Elliott and Laura Norton are worthy of a better vehicle to demonstrate their abilities than this. If I were to offer Miss Elliott a cautionary word of advice, it would be: ‘Watch out! Be careful that you don’t become typecast as the slightly cynical tart with a heart and the witty one-liners.’

James Baxter’s attempt to instil a degree of believability into the one-dimensional role of Johnny, combined with his stature, hairstyle and facial expressions, resulted in a performance that made him seem like Sonic the Hedgehog with a severe case of haemorrhoids.

The audience on press night, aside from theatre critics, seemed to comprise of family and friends of the writer and performers, plus a sprinkling of invited local celebrities, and there was a fair amount of over-enthusiastic, sycophantic laughter which smacked of desperation more than anything else.

When the only line in the play that I could really engage with was ‘I just want to get home and pretend tonight never even happened’, it leaves little more to say.

Steve Burbridge.

‘Jump!’ runs at Live Theatre, Newcastle until Saturday 5^th December 2009.

 

 

 

Last Of The Summer Wine: The Moonbather

Darlington Civic Theatre

Last of the Summer Wine is the longest-running sit-com in the world and a national institution in Britain. Since January 1973, the gentle programme about a trio of old men and their eccentric exploits has charmed and enthralled its viewers.

Now, for the second time, it transfers to the stage with a new play, entitled ‘The Moonbather’, written by Roy Clarke.

The roles of Compo, Clegg and Foggy – which were played on screen by Bill Owen, Peter Sallis and Brian Wilde – are recreated with aplomb by Harry Dickman, Timothy Kightley and John Pennington, respectively. The cast also includes Ruth Madoc as Meg, Tony Adams as Mr Pilbeam and Steven Pinder as Gifford Bewmont.

The story revolves around the hunt for a nocturnal streaker who, being a braver man than I, has been revealing himself to the women of Holmfirth. In a sub-plot, Foggy is also trying to win the affections of the timid Samantha (Gillian Axtell) and steal her away from the hapless Gifford Bewmont who has been stringing her along for the past fourteen years.

Although the performances of the three old codgers are carefully crafted, they are let down by the script which is contrived, smutty and predictable. It is hard to believe that it has been written by the creator and writer of the television programme. The shortcomings of the script are further compounded by some cringe-worthy impersonations of Nora Batty and Marina by Estelle Collins and of Wally Batty and Howard by the equally untalented Ian Marr.

Ruth Madoc attempts, in vain, to bring a touch of ‘star-quality’ to the proceedings in her role as the larger-than-life Meg but, in doing so, delivers a performance that is hammy at best.

In the end, the streaker is caught and his motives are not at all sexually perverted – he has a skin condition that, he believes, is alleviated by exposing his bare flesh to moonlight. Oh well, that’s alright then!

The one consolation is that the piece is fairly short, running at just under two hours. This gave me enough time to obtain a stiff drink and ponder the two mysteries that remained unsolved in Holmfirth – why do the trees grow in symmetrical mirror images of each other and why does Cleggy need a letter box on the internal door of his lounge?

Steve Burbridge.

‘Last of the Summer Wine’ runs until Saturday 14^th November 2009.

 

A classic Glaswegian play finds itself back home on this new tour, and received the welcome of an old friend in it’s Glasgow opening night audience.

 

Much of the appeal of The Steamie lies in the fantastic script by Tony Roper. As with his recent works (the wonderful Celts in Seville being of particular note) this play is observational, caustic and full of wonderful “parliamo Glasgow” terminology where the author has created well rounded characters whose appeal is not in their glamour or appearance, but their good humour and loyal natures.

 

The Steamie characters – Dolly, Magrit, Doreen and Mrs Culfeathers feel like old friends to most Scots, who have watched the televised version of this play many a Hogmanay on TV. This makes it a tough gig for any actress to take on these iconic roles, without trying to mimic the previous performances that are known so well. Leading the way on this front was Maureen Carr as Dolly. Excellent comic timing combined with an intelligent physicality brought this character believably to life, which is some feat considering the flights of fancy this character gets carried away with. Jacqueline Hughes, making her Scottish debut, was a sweet and naive Doreen, with a singing voice to match. Her lilting spoken voice worked well against the harsher tones of the older female characters, and helped create the imagery of the plans that she dreamt of, making this young actress one to watch for the future.

 

Kay Gallie, making a return to the role of Mrs Culfeathers, shows why she is in such demand in both TV and theatre. Knowing just how long to hold a comic pause for effect requires a lot of experience and Kay Gallie has that in spades. Her interpretation of the frail, hardworking older woman had the audience moved to tears, at times with sheer emotion and also with laughter. The “Top Dog” of this group is Magrit – Julie Austin got a lot of laughs here as she had a great delivery of the comic put-downs. It would have been nice if she had been asked to provide more light and shade in the role, so that the emotional sections hit home more. I think this is down to direction, as Alison Peebles seemed to be driving to make sure every laugh was “wrung-out” from this production. This did not make the comic bits seem forced, actually much the opposite, but this same interest did not seem to be shown to the sentimental or emotional moments of this clever play. David McGowan did try to make the most of the role of Andy, however his “drunk” scenes seemed to be a little too “Rab C Nesbitt” to be believable.

 

Dave Anderson’s songs still stand the test of time, again due to the classic Glasgow patter used in the lyrics – “ a swagger that wid dry a washin’” being a particular favourite of mine – but it didn’t really work to see some singing and non-singing cast trying to put these harmonies together.

 

All in all, it is great to see The Steamie back on the stage, but it does look like it maybe needs another rinse and a bit of an iron to get it back to it’s former sparkling glory. That said it is still a hugely funny and entertaining piece of theatre, and for Maureen Carr’s alone, especially during and after the “Galloway’s Mince” section, it is well worth the ticket price.

 

Listings Info:

 

Mon 2^nd – Sat 7^th November

Tue – Sat eves 7.30pm

Wed, Thurs & Sat Mat 2.30pm

Audio described performance Thu 5 Nov 7.30pm

 

Tickets: £10 - £25

 

Box Office: 0870 060 6647          www.ambassadortickets.com/glasgow

Anyone who nostalgically misses the heyday of 1970s ITV race comedy – epitomised by Love Thy Neighbour and Mind Your Language – should hurry themselves down to the Theatre Royal Stratford East for the new play by Cosh Omar, whose Battle of Green Lanes proved such a critical success at the same venue in 2004. The first act of the play, at least, will satisfy a demand for guffaws at broad comic situations, vulgarity, farcical argy-bargy and a dramatis personae in which racial, sexual and cultural stereotypes abound.

Cosh Omar himself stars as Hassan Hassan, an eccentric bachelor who cohabits with his transgender houseboy/sex servant Sanjay, played by Raj Ghatak as if he's the ethnic love-child of John Inman and Julian Clary. Conveniently for the plot, Hassan suffers from "acute episodic paroxysmal alcoholic amnesia" – in other words, he goes out, gets drunk, does silly things and can't remember doing them. On this occasion, his condition has got him into quite a pickle – he's acquired a wife, in the shape of a pretty young Muslim girl in a snazzy hijab. Various comic twists and turns ensue, as Hassan's house is invaded by a Jewish builder, a reactionary white neighbour, the girl's fundamentalist Muslim family and Hassan's own dysfunctional Turkish parents. The first act and a half has a great deal of very broad fun with this cast of walking talking cultural clichés and the talented company works hard to produce some genuine belly laughs. 

It appears to be Omar's intention to paint a picture of the contradictions, in-fighting and tensions of multi-cultural society as a farcical scrum. The play gets into potentially scathing Ortonesque territory when the Muslim and Jewish characters, previously at each others' throats, conspire to murder the old white neighbour and bury him under the Hassan's in-progress extension. But unfortunately the play, instead of building on and paying off the plot's comic situations, descends into speechifying and, worse, sermonising about the Islamic and the European past and present, a trait exemplified by the appearance of a black policeman whose only dramatic function seems to be teach the characters and the audience a lesson in multi-cultural tolerance. This leads to a strangely abstract anti-climax in which the bulk of the cast leave stage to address a group of policemen waiting to be taught racial tolerance and a denouement which desperately contrives every character a happy ending. This feels severely compromised, as if Omar doesn't have the courage of his convictions in terms of sending up his stock-character, falling back on a desperate need to convince us that the play is really "constructive" and "helpful." Satire doesn't need to conciliate its audience like this.

Sanjay, the transsexual houseboy, is the most intriguing and at the same time the least successful of the play's major characters. There are certainly plays to be written about the curious position of homosexuals in Muslim societies, gay men who provide ostensibly heterosexual men with sex and are allowed a social existence if they change their gender (Iran, for example, has allowed hundreds of sex change operations in the past few years). But Omar misses the opportunity to get beneath the surface of this character, and we are left with a cheap camp variety turn written and performed without heart or soul. In fact, none of Omar's characters becomes any more than a cardboard cut-out, the women especially given a scarce amount to do or say.

Part of the problem is that Omar has been encouraged to work on a luxurious scale, a cast of thirteen filling the stage but many of the minor parts are left thankless and underdeveloped. Despite this, the actors are excellent – Omar himself performs with considerable verve and excellent comic timing (reminding me of a cross between Mike and Bernie Winters), Faraz Ayub portrays a hilariously boorish fundamentalist and the wonderful Jack Chissick fills the stage with a gloriously funny splenetic rage as the nasty neighbour. It is a shame that most of the play's verbal wit is on the level of having Chissick scream "f**king hell!" whenever possible, but the actor makes the most of every one of these obscene yelps. Kerry Michael's production is pacey and energetic when the play is, but his insistence on lining people up on the edge of the stage as if they are addressing the audience during the later speeches only emphasises the play's leap into the pulpit.

It's hard to know why Omar has chosen to resurrect a rather discredited 1970s form of populist TV sitcom to deal with the racial and cultural contradictions of today, and still harder to understand why, having done so, he doesn't stick to his guns and continue to make us roar with laughter at contemporary mores rather than going preachy and maudlin about sentiments which most of the Theatre Royal audience will always already be inclined to agree with him on.

Theatre Royal Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, Stratford, London
E15 1BN
Box Ofice: Mon – Sat, 10am –6pm 020 8534 0310
16 October - 14 November 2009
Tues - Sat 7.30pm, Matinee Sat 3pm

 

Ladies' Day, Queen's Theatre Hornchurch.

Amanda Whittington's play, about a group of women fish-packers who spend a day at the Ascot races, was such an enormous success when first produced by Hull Truck in 2005 that it merited a sequel, Ladies Down Under, two years later. The play is now revived at the Queen's Theatre, Hornchurch where its populist humour, salt-of-the-earth characters and recognisable situations have found the ideal venue. The play is instantly accessible yet does not shy away from delving into the darker recesses of its characters lives, a technique which pays dividends in terms of a certain kind of positive audience response but which ultimately, especially in terms of the denouement, leaves me with nagging doubts.

The play begins with our four fish-packing heroines whiling away the time on their production line whilst gossiping and singing snatches from popular songs. The sense of human beings trapped in a humdrum, repetitive routine yet managing to keep their spirits up comes across persuasively, although the pile-up of references to contemporary popular culture raises questions about the likely longevity of the material (not that the audience on the night minded this). We discover that one of the women - the seemingly contentedly married Pearl - is due to take early retirement and that she and her fellows haven't yet decided on her leaving do. By the end of the scene, the woman make up their minds to visit Royal Ascot on Ladies' Day, which happens to be tomorrow. Their foreman conveniently gives the women the day off and the women find themselves, at the beginning of the next scene, at the gates of the racecourse. A tout tries to sell them a ticket at a hugely inflated price but, as luck would have it, one of the women finds a purse in the lavatory and so our heroines steal the tickets within and gain access to the grounds.

The ease with which the women get time off and the coincidence of finding these tickets feels rather lame. The first half of the play progresses as a series of episodic comedy sketches emphasising the women's fish-out-of-water escapades at the race course, which are amusing enough in themselves but which feel rather lacking in cohesion. We get to know the women's individual foibles – Shelley is a brassy tart with dreams of celebrity status, Jan is strident and takes no nonsense, Linda is nice but dim – and their back-stories have begun to be revealed. But the sense that this is a kind of slap-dash Dinner Ladies hangs in the air and I began to wonder why I was watching. Only in the very last gasp of the act before the interval do we discover that Pearl's wish to visit Ascot was motivated not by mere passing interest but because she's been having a once weekly bonk with a bookie named Barry in a local hotel; he didn't show up last week and Pearl wants to know why, her feelings for him going beyond the sexual. She knows he always covers Royal Ascot… The revelation of this affair comes as a shock to straight-laced Jan and gives the audience late-in- the-day motivation for returning to the play after the interval.

The first half would undoubtedly be stronger if this plot was introduced earlier in the proceedings. Happily the second half is - for the most part - much stronger. The play remains episodic but we do uncover some intriguingly murky depths within the women.  Each woman's lives is shown to be turmoil of frustrated desire, dull routine, thwarted ambition, loneliness and compromise. All of this rings true and feels emotionally honest even if some of the revelations don't feel entirely unpredictable. By the end of the day, Jan, Shelley and Pearl are either drunk, exposed, deflated and heading for home in a state of near despair with only each other to lean on. Even a promising run of wins on the tote ends when the final horse loses. Only Linda has done well out of the day, kindling a promising friendship with a lonely jockey.

The play returns the women to their fish-packing production line. Whittington has done much to uncover the depths of these women's lives and it looks as if there are going to be left to plod on in the same old ways, except maybe they can be more honest with each other about their desires. This would make for a bitter-sweet ending and send the audience into the night thoughtful, maybe a little sad. The choice for the populist playwright here is between this or giving the audience a pick-me-up in terms of a final, unlikely twist which sends them out of the theatre wreathed in smiles. One of these options is a little harder than the other, and let's just say that for my taste Whittington takes the easier option. But this is a matter of taste, and the question of how to end this kind of story is one of the most difficult choices for a good, populist writer to face.

Matt Devitt's production has great energy and emotional truth. In the first act he shows real imagination in achieving scene changes which don't break the flow of the evening, an achievement which frustratingly falls off in the second half. The woman are all excellent – Helen Watson brings a genuine sense human yearning to Pearl, Jane Milligan's Jan is a fine comic portrait of lumbering drunken confusion and both Sarah Scowen as Shelley and Lucy Thackeray as Linda make the most of characters' comic and poignant moments. Simon Jessup plays "All the Men" and although his factory foreman is bland and his John McCririck turn is disappointing, he does well as a drunken gambling addict, as Pearl's sad bookie lover and especially as the dieting, pill-popping, gym-addicted failure of a jockey who is the answer to Linda's dreams. It is in these final three male roles that the real dark truth of Ascot and the lives of those who attend it becomes apparent. This shady edge to the play is aided by Claire Lyth's populating her sets with show-room dummies done up in posh togs, standing still with dead eyes until they shift positions jerkily to follow a race. These fortuitously reminded me of those dummy toffs which are verbally and physically assaulted by Gethin Price in Trevor Griffiths' Comedians.

All in all Ladies' Day is a piece of theatre which - behind the plentiful laughs - does begin to scrape the depths of its characters' thwarted lives, even if this excavation finally pulls its punches.

The Queen's Theatre, Billet Lane, Hornchurch.

Box Office: 01708 443333

2-17 October 2009

Mon-Sat 8pm, Matinees Thu & Sat 2.30pm

http://www.queens-theatre.co.uk/

 

 

 

Spider’s Web

UK TOUR

Reviewed at Darlington Civic Theatre

It goes without saying that Agatha Christie is ‘Queen of the Whodunnit’ and a literary force to be reckoned with. Only the Bible is known to have outsold her collected sales of roughly four billion copies of novels. The Mousetrap is now the longest-running play in the world and it has been performed at St. Martin’s Theatre in the West End of London since 1952.

Although much of her work is laced with wit and humour, would most people associate her with farce? Probably not.

However, with her first foray into the comedy genre, she proved herself to be a versatile and skilled writer. Spider’s Web was originally written as a vehicle for Margaret Lockwood to avoid becoming typecast as a dark or menacing character.

The plot revolves around the newly-married Clarissa Hailsham-Brown, who is something of a fantasist. When she discovers a dead body in the drawing room of her country home, Cobblestone Court, her over active imagination is put to the test as she must come up with a way of getting rid of the body, thus avoiding a scandal for her husband who is a Foreign Office diplomat.

In the process she has to persuade her house-guests to help her, convince the local constabulary that no such body ever existed and catch the killer before she becomes the prime suspect.

A consummate cast, led by Melanie Gutteridge as Clarissa, deliver polished performances and suit their parts perfectly. Bruce Montague has an authentic air of authority as the aristocratic Sir Rowland Delahare, Mark Wynter bumbles and barks brilliantly as Hugo Birch, the local JP, and Catherine Shipton wholeheartedly hurls herself into the role of Mildred Peake, the gardener.

Indeed, all the production values of this piece are absolutely top-notch. Simon Scullion’s set is a visual treat that is complimented by Mark Howett’s lighting and Brigid Guy’s costumes. Director Joe Harmston has pitched the pace of the action perfectly and scene changes are executed to pieces of period music selected by sound designer Ian Horrocks-Taylor.

Spider’s Web weaves a wonderful evening of sheer enjoyment that is incredibly easy to get caught up in.

Steve Burbridge.

‘Spider’s Web’ continues at Darlington Civic Theatre until Saturday 3^rd October 2009.