Colin McIntyre’s highly anticipated and much-loved classic thriller season is underway at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal once again.
The tone for the season’s annual four-week run has been well and truly set with a gripping opening night performance of Wait Until Dark.
Directed by Karen Henson and based on the original 1966 Frederick Knott play of the same name, Wait Until Dark is the story of suburban housewife, Suzy Henderson, who is unknowingly coerced into playing a pivotal role in a devious plot orchestrated by a violent criminal.
Blinded in a car accident, Suzy (in a stand-out performance by Anna Mitcham) seems like an easy target for ex-cons Mike (Chris Sheridan), Croker (David Martin), and their sharp ring-leader, Roat (David Gilbrook) who plan to get into her apartment and search for a very special doll.
Ensuring Suzy’s husband Sam, who innocently brought the doll home the day before, is out of the picture pursuing a fabricated job, the trio of criminals set their plan into motion. They disguise themselves as a Police Inspector, Sam’s old army buddy and a strange man whose wife has been recently been found murdered right outside the apartment.
It should be easy, figuratively speaking, to pull the wool over a blind woman’s eyes. But Suzy is no helpless damsel and underestimating her might just be the biggest mistake these criminals will ever make.
Without giving too much away, what follows is two hours of twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat. There’s also, somewhat surprisingly, a little light comedic relief provided by Suzy’s upstairs neighbour Gloria (Juliette Strobel) to keep the audience from getting altogether too tense.
Everything you could possibly want in a classic thriller is here; murder, subterfuge, and a porcelain doll stuffed with heroin.
Wait Until Dark is showing at Theatre Royal 30 Jul-3rd Aug. Tickets from £12 are available at www.trch.co.uk
Review by Laura Somers
