Scared to Death

The atmosphere for this thriller was set in place the moment the curtain was raised with the set, lighting, sound effects, furniture moving on its own, doors opening and closing, and other ghostly effects. Complemented with outfits to suit the mid-nineteenth century everything worked like clockwork. The story, set in 1857, revolves around the lives of people working in a flour mill. It is outlined by a narrator and the play takes us back to the early days, then forward in time and back again to various stages and events in the characters’ lives.

Ron Aldridge’s excellent direction, a strong cast, and an impressive set design with all its technical challenges was outstanding. The cast worked well together and understood the relationships between each other. Their actions and dialogue kept the audience on the edge of their seats with the suspense running from the start to the final curtain.

Will Nicholls, owner of Nicholls Flour Mill, Jacob Ford and Mary Wilson have been friends since childhood. Jacob has always loved Mary, but she loves Will and is happily married to him. The mill is facing financial problems and Will, resorting to alcohol and gambling in a big way, is losing more than he can afford. Jacob returns to the village after several years away and is still madly in love with Mary. He then hatches an evil scheme to get his hands on the mill, strongly believing it should be his, at the same time desperately wanting to have Mary for himself. During a poker game, Jacob cheats Will and wins the deeds to the mill. As a result of this disaster, Will disappears and the audience is left in suspense as to what has happened to him although Mary never gives up on him returning home. But when chairs move on their own, books fly off the shelves, there is hammering on the cellar and outside doors amid other ghostly happenings things start to get more intense. Doubts then start to grow in Mary’s mind as she wonders if these ghostly events are a warning as Jacob starts to get more and more earnest.

Ian Brady is Clem Watkins, a local farmer, and takes on the role of the narrator, keeping the storyline moving forwards and backwards through time. With an unbelievable amount of dialogue Ian gave a very impressive performance.

Tommy Jones gives an amazing and a very powerful performance of Jacob Ford, who develops into a man obsessed by greed and for the love of Mary. After we realize he has murdered Will and buried him in the cellar of Will and Mary’s house, his obsession becomes even greater, and he attacks Mary as she tries to open the cellar doors. He strangles and buries her in the cellar, and we watch him change both physically and mentally from the man we first met as the ghosts of Will and Mary drive him mad. He is literally scared to death and in the final scene we watch him go completely mad - if not carefully controlled this can “go over the top”, but Tommy was spot-on.

Sarah Betts’ performance of Mary Nicholls was superb throughout the play, showing love, and concern for her husband Will, while distancing herself from Jacob’s advances. The final scene with Jacob and Mary was palpable, with the tension between them building up as Jacob physically attacks her. Daniel Roberts’ performance of Will Nicholls was excellent as he moved with ease from a successful businessman to a man troubled by financial worries. We watch him get murdered by Jacob in another scene that was skilfully controlled.

Another character involved in this thriller is Richard Thompson as John Doherty (the local thatcher) who is a gentle man trying only to see the good things in life. No matter how many or how few pages of dialogue a character has, they are very important in the storyline and Richard’s characterisation was perfect.

Although we never saw these young actors on stage (I certainly hope to do so in the future), we heard their very clear voices of the young Will (Harry Evans), Mary (Esme Sait-Bush) and Jacob (Alfie Evans). Well done.

Congratulations to everyone involved with Dronfield Players for this excellent production and their hard work – it ticked all the boxes for us.

Many thanks for the invite and a very enjoyable production.

 

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