Nightfright – The Connaught theatre, Worthing

Writer: Roger S. Moss

Director: Chris Moreno

Reviewer: Ann Bawtree

The Public Reviews Rating:

Lovers of melodrama and anyone else who appreciates an entertaining evening at the theatre can do no better than to see Roger S. Moss’s “Nightlife”. It is a well worn and trusted formula beloved of addicts to “Midsommer Murders”, Miss Marple, Poirot and the like but still an effective story line.

An innocent young pair of newly weds move into a furnished appartment in a converted, Gothic chapel, complete with its own graveyard. The husband finds it rather expensive but is won over by his wife’s ecstasy in finding that the kitchen boasts an Aga. The play is now nearly twenty years old but the story, set in “the present”, still works its magic.

Add thunderstorms, power cuts, telephones which go dead and a locked cupboard for which no-one will admit having the key and the scene is set for mayhem. Idiosyncratic characters appear, contrasting strongly with the normality of the young couple. There is the frumpy spinster, whisky swilling housekeeper who seems to regard the flat as her own territory and the two faced estate agent who turns out to be not all that he seems. Later we meet Mr Harvey, the gardener whose lack of personal hygiene makes him a less than welcome caller and the gay divorcée, who befriends the young wife while casting a predatory eye over her husband.

The set design of David North and Alan Miller Bunford cleverly incorporates the sitting room, and its unnervingly sticky front door and the unlockable back door, with the bedroom above. It makes a perfectly convincing bijou residence with just the suggestion of shrubbery close by. David North also had a big job on to design the lighting, with all that inclement weather and its effects.

There are several points at which the audience is hard put not to shout “He’s behind you!” The suspense develops moving from half truths to down right lies. These, mixed with unlikely explanations, many a loose end and a feeling that there is definitely “something nasty in the wood shed” continue until the horrid explanation is revealed. Even then the final dénouement is inconclusive.

The cast of David Callister, Henry Cormas, Helen George, Joanne Heywood, Dianne Nicks and Neil Roberts are splendid and can be seen in this production not only at Worthing for the rest of this week, but also at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool the second week in June and straight afterwards back south at the Capitol, Horsham