It is difficult to know what to make of Double Double, billed as a comedy thriller by Eric Ellice and Roger Rees, now showing at the Wharf Theatre in Devizes.

It is not gripping enough to be a thriller, funny enough to be a comedy or engaging enough to be a romance, though, granted, it does contain elements of all three.

Philippa James has brought a down-and-out, Duncan McPhee, into her luxury apartment (a stunning set by O C Wood, Merrily Powell and Pete Wallis) in Connaught Square, London.
She explains that her husband, Richard, has died as the result of a diving accident and in order to access the £4million in his trust fund, assuming he remains married on his 45th birthday, she will have to produce a “husband” that will pass muster with the trustees.
Duncan is the dead spit of Richard and she begins the process of turning him into a City banker with a cut-glass accent and perfect dress sense.
Of course, this is a thriller and it can’t be as simple as that. And it isn’t. The problem with Merrily Powell’s production is that it is too much of the same pace. The new plot directions are not marked by a reaction by the cast so the audience ends up more than perplexed about what is going on.
There is always a problem with two people being onstage for the entire evening. The verbose script needs to be learned and there is not a lot of time left to create believable characters. Helen Wuscher as Philippa has a particularly hard task. Time and time again she finds herself standing stage left delivering her lines out front.
Chris Palmer is more successful as Duncan, though his accent is well off beam and his character is more likely to found strolling on the banks of the Boyne rather than the Tay.
If you can put up with the longueurs of the first act, the denouement and its remarkable coup de theatre is well worth waiting for.