Night Must Fall

A classic written in the ‘30s - a dark psychological drama set in the Essex home of the unpleasant and controlling Mrs. Bramson. She mistreats everyone around her, including her niece Olivia and the household staff. When a charming bellboy named Dan enters their lives, he quickly gains Mrs. Bramson’s trust despite suspicious circumstances linked to a missing local woman. As tensions rise, evidence suggests Dan is dangerous, but Olivia falls under his influence. Ultimately, Dan murders Mrs. Bramson, and although Olivia initially tries to protect him, he is arrested after revealing his guilt of killing both women and an unstable mind.

Young Ben Clarke, more used to the technical side of theatre, took on his first leading role - a huge responsibility and created this charmer Dan, a smiler, with a caring persona who was both manipulative and a cold-blooded killer. Audibly good, grasping the script intentions and character change. Ben produced a most convincing performance although not comfortable when smoking. I’m quite sure the acting bug will have taken hold for future projects.

The somewhat nervous, young housemaid pregnant Dora, ignored by father to be Dan, put upon by her unpleasant employer, was played by Hayley Jones making us feel quite sorry for the character she enacted. Mrs Terence the cook was not afraid to speak up in her well-maintained estuary voice, quite a spiky part and her hair! Again, put upon by Mrs. Bransom Angela Woodcock developed a perfect ‘scurry’ walk and seemed almost annoyed by any requests. Her asides brought a good comedic touch to the otherwise tense situation. The cameo part of well uniformed, caring district nurse Libby who regularly visited the house dealing with Mrs. B demands was Cat Hodson using a gentle Welsh accent.

Most adaptable in her castings is Siana Weston – this time a wealthy, discontented woman wheelchair bound, wicked tongued who actually got her comeuppance and is smothered by Dan who completely took her in with his charm and attention. Great control of the chair throughout but who would want to cross her! Her niece is there to pander under duress, and Freya Mardon convincingly captures Olivia’s sadness. She refuses the advances and proposals of Hubert Laurie and although suspicious of Dan falls under his spell. Having caught the acting bug too, Steve Lenham played the boring persistent suitor Hubert but to no avail. Lastly there was the typically characterised police detective Iinspector Belsize wearing a trenchcoat and a trilby and smoking a Sherlock Holmes curly pipe. This is a vision of a detective I never knew as a girl when my father was a detective – he always wore a suit, never a trenchcoat and certainly didn’t smoke a curly SH pipe!! James Harper took on this role of authority, but I wasn’t too sure if his accent was actually estuary.

The single open set depicting Mrs. Bransom’s living room with a netted window taking us with effective lighting from daylight into darkness, with Penny Tobin operating the sound desk again using tension building effects and music allowing us to imagine a lonely location. The room was well furnished with classic items including a fireplace but uncluttered allowing Siana to manoeuvre her wheelchair freely, using back black flats for outside exits and to other interior rooms. Together Sarah Calcutt and Megan Hollands supplied the classic costumes of the period with Penny Tobin’s makeup designs enhancing appearance. The behind the scenes team was headed by SM Adrian Williams. Louisa certainly created through her actors a tension full production and although the murderer was predicable it was an interesting look into the manipulation of each character together with comedic touches. I did feel the performance needed a faster pace. The addition of BSL signer was again fascinating to watch and congratulations for she stood for the whole performance. FOH Manager was Mark Jeffery with refreshments and raffle available together with the usual interesting photograph display, and a different way of obtaining the programme by using a QR code, but fortunately I had copy forwarded to me by email.

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