The critique published by the Bordon & Petersfield Times, and by the Haslemere Herald
Audiences arrived at Grayshott Village Hall on Friday evening to learn that the performance of 'Night Watch' would be the first rather
than the expected second. In the absence of their leading lady on the opening night it was decided to cancel the performance.
This action, a precedent within living memory for the Stagers, was no doubt a disappointment for the assembled audience. However, as
the play unfolded, the required presence of the leading role on stage almost throughout the play made consideration of using a stand-in,
albeit with script, a non-starter.
Night Watch, written by playwright, Lucille Fletcher, opened on Broadway in 1972 and was quickly followed by a film version in 1973
starring Elizabeth Taylor. The play, a psychological thriller, is an American version of the British speciality of incorporating
sneaky goings-on in a houseful of suspects and retained shades of plots more commonly associated with Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier.
Set in a fancy New York apartment from which one can see into an abandoned tenement the play opens with heiress, Elaine Wheeler,
pacing the living room troubled by unsettling memories and vague fears. As her second husband, John, tries to comfort her Elaine
screams as she fleetingly glimpses the body of a dead man in the tenement opposite. The police are called but find nothing but an
empty chair. Elaine?s terror grows when she later sees a second body ? this time a woman?s. From this point on the plot moves
quickly and grippingly. Did Elaine really see a body or two or is she, as John and best friend Blanche believe, going cuckoo?
Can John and Blanche, who are having an affair, trying to spirit Elaine off to a clinic in Switzerland so they can commit hanky-panky
on her money? Can we trust the maid with an improbable accent, and the flamboyant neighbour with a very English sounding name?
June Hegarty did splendidly well in the part of Elaine; lots of words and lots of emotion which she accomplished with great assurance.
John, played with great verve by Michael Clarke, and ably aided and abetted by Jane Clayton as the alluring Blanche, provided the perfect
pair of foils for the neurotic Elaine. Peter Gardner brought his usual enthusiasm and freshness to the part of the irritatingly nerdy
neighbour, Curtis Appleby. John Hilder cut the right stance as the cynical gum-chewing police lieutenant Walker and Brezetta Thonger, in
the role of Walker?s side-kick, Vanelli, brought back fond memories of Sharon Gless in the 70s televison detective series, Cagney and
Lacey. Shirley Jellis and John Preskett respectively played the cameo roles of the psychiatrist and delicatessen owner. Trudy Hathaway
as the Germanic housemaid, Helga, was an instant hit. Always lurking and listening around corners she provided the only, and much needed,
comedy element to the play.
Peter Budd, as director, used his considerable experience to ensure that this play, with a script that could have lapsed into plodding
boredom, not only kept pace, but kept the audience?s interest. The Stagers can feel well pleased with their latest production in the
knowledge that that their usual high standards of stage-craft were maintained. The quality of the set was excellent and at curtain-up
the audiences were immediately transported to downtown New York.
I left at the end wondering whether the psychiatrist was for real or if she was having an affair with the delicatessen owner from Peckham?
But, perhaps the greatest mystery of the play is why neighbour Curtis Appleby, the suspected quintessential Englishman, spoke in hushed tones
with the curious pseudo-Hungarian accent? I suspect that he had secret designs on Helga and, having acquired Elaine?s apartment key as she
sped off to Switzerland for a better life, leaving behind the dead bodies of John and Blanche in the tenement, he intended to live out his
days in ill-gotten luxury. Well good luck to him!
AJDB.
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