2:59pm Thursday 3rd July 2008
An excellent, well-constructed set and superb sound effects enhanced the Western Players' production of The House on the Cliff, at The Arts Centre in Old Town, Swindon, last week.
Edna Reeves directed the able cast of George Batson's mystery comedy, in which occasional light-hearted lines eased the suspense of the highly convoluted plot.
Hannah Evans played Ellen Clayton, confined to a wheelchair since the car accident which killed her father, an eminent lawyer.
Ellen was sole beneficiary of a will that surprisingly made no mention of her stepmother Karen (Shirley Dodson).
A later will, cunningly concealed, provided a motive for murder.
Adrian Peace, as Dr Lane, Ellen's respectable, attentive GP, who was off to a conference in Paris, arranged for a locum, Corey Phillips, to give her daily treatment in his absence. But was there a hidden agenda?
Corey, charmingly portrayed by John Fisher, had a startlingly sinister side to his nature.
Karen Evans, as the practical, friendly Nurse Pepper, found her addiction to detective novels echoed unnervingly in real life.
Fran Loss, as Jenny, the long-established housekeeper, was a dour character, full of dark foreboding, but fiercely protective of Ellen.
A secret passage behind a bookcase, faint reverberations of a long-ago tragedy and strange shapes, glimpsed through a window at night, all heightened the mystery.
We were all kept guessing, but afterwards I overheard people puzzling about loose ends which the denouement failed to tie up.
Stella Taylor
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