A thriller that had a shocked audience audibly gasping.
Friday evening. Sally Driscoll is soaking up the gins, waiting for her husband to come home from work. John Barrett turns up with a briefcase and reminds her that they met at a business conference in Torquay. He needs to talk about his wife’s tragic car accident. But when Sally’s husband, Mark, turns up events take a sinister turn.
In many ways, this three handed play, which I saw at the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne on 19th July 2024, is very similar to J B Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’ with John taking the part of Inspector Goole. Bit by bit John peels back the layers of deception. But rather than exploring social responsibilities, it focuses on the specific culpability of Mark. Until nearly the end, I was second guessing all the revelations but the final ten minutes were so shocking that they turned what had seemed a somewhat derivative and run-of-the-mill drama into a masterpiece.
Toby Manley was superb, playing John as a pedantic obsessive. John’s dialogue is precise, formal and old-fashioned and Manley’s deadpan expression and wooden body-language contributed enormously to creating this character.
Lucy Jane Quinlan was also excellent in her portrayal of Sally as a disenchanted wife who uses alcohol to cope with her husband’s infidelity. Pete Ashmore also shone as Mark, alternating between authority and anger, defiant until almost the end.
Costume, set, lighting and design supported the actors and the script perfectly. The experience provided an excellent evening’s entertainment.
This was the third of three phil&ben productions at the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne this summer; I was also very impressed by 'Travels With My Aunt' which I saw last week. I also enjoyed their production of 'Gaslight' last year. I look forward to 'Hound of the Baskervilles' which is coming in August.
N J Crisp was a well-known, prolific and successful writer who flourished in the 1960s and 1970s as a scriptwriter for some of the classic television shows of the time; he wrote 66 episodes of Dixon of Dock Green, 15 episodes of Dr Finlay’s Casebook, and 92 episodes of The Brothers as well as contributing to many others such as Colditz and Secret Army. Dangerous Obsession was one of his later works, being first performed in 1987. In 1999 it was made into the film Darkness Falls starring Ray Winstone but took such liberties with the script that N J Crisp insisted on having his name removed from the credits.
Friday evening. Sally Driscoll is soaking up the gins, waiting for her husband to come home from work. John Barrett turns up with a briefcase and reminds her that they met at a business conference in Torquay. He needs to talk about his wife’s tragic car accident. But when Sally’s husband, Mark, turns up events take a sinister turn.
In many ways, this three handed play, which I saw at the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne on 19th July 2024, is very similar to J B Priestley’s ‘An Inspector Calls’ with John taking the part of Inspector Goole. Bit by bit John peels back the layers of deception. But rather than exploring social responsibilities, it focuses on the specific culpability of Mark. Until nearly the end, I was second guessing all the revelations but the final ten minutes were so shocking that they turned what had seemed a somewhat derivative and run-of-the-mill drama into a masterpiece.
Toby Manley was superb, playing John as a pedantic obsessive. John’s dialogue is precise, formal and old-fashioned and Manley’s deadpan expression and wooden body-language contributed enormously to creating this character.
Lucy Jane Quinlan was also excellent in her portrayal of Sally as a disenchanted wife who uses alcohol to cope with her husband’s infidelity. Pete Ashmore also shone as Mark, alternating between authority and anger, defiant until almost the end.
Costume, set, lighting and design supported the actors and the script perfectly. The experience provided an excellent evening’s entertainment.
This was the third of three phil&ben productions at the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne this summer; I was also very impressed by 'Travels With My Aunt' which I saw last week. I also enjoyed their production of 'Gaslight' last year. I look forward to 'Hound of the Baskervilles' which is coming in August.
N J Crisp was a well-known, prolific and successful writer who flourished in the 1960s and 1970s as a scriptwriter for some of the classic television shows of the time; he wrote 66 episodes of Dixon of Dock Green, 15 episodes of Dr Finlay’s Casebook, and 92 episodes of The Brothers as well as contributing to many others such as Colditz and Secret Army. Dangerous Obsession was one of his later works, being first performed in 1987. In 1999 it was made into the film Darkness Falls starring Ray Winstone but took such liberties with the script that N J Crisp insisted on having his name removed from the credits.
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