Bijou Theatre Productions present ‘Revenge’ this week, a thriller by Robin Hawdon. Directed by Stephanie Austin, the play runs from Wednesday 10 October to Saturday 13 October 2012 at the Palace Theatre, Paignton.

This is an extraordinary achievement, as a two-hander that allows one conversation to hold the audience for a couple of hours of twisting-turning narrative.

Martin Austin plays Bill Crayshaw MP, a politician on the road to power. Already a successful businessman, he has something of the Richard Branson’s about him as the scene opens in his London flat, taking calls across three telephones after his return from a trip overseas. There’s plenty of art on display, plenty of vodka to hand and a couple of ladies in need of his attention.

He soon receives a call telling him that his Party Agent died in a car crash the previous day, closely followed by the arrival Mary Stewart, played by Julie Smith, a journalist looking for an interview that examines deeper issues than one might expect ranging from what motivates past decisions and what consequences those actions have for others right through to the existence of evil.

There is a lovely story here and the more far fetched things become the more you want to cheer them on, as with a two-handed thriller what else can you do but buckle yourself in for a couple of hours of confrontation and escalating madness. In the second half the revelations come thick and fast and we learn that nothing is ever quite what it seems.

The audience are in safe hands with Austin and Smith, who make the evening a complete pleasure. There are a few lighter moments, including a well-received joke at the expense of amateur theatre, but this only served as a reminder that these are two established local thespians at the top of their game.

If you love a thriller, enjoy character driven storytelling with many a skeleton in the closet and like seeing great local talent make two-handed theatre look easy, this is a production not to be missed.

Last review from Bijou Theatre Productions: Trap For A Lonely Man

It was the last performance of ‘Trap For a Lonely Man’ last night at the Palace Theatre, Paignton. The Bijou Theatre Company presented the Robert Thomas thriller, translated by Lucienne Hill and John Sutro, as part of the ‘Sleuths!’ week, the English Riviera Festival of Crime Writing. Directed by Cora Gant, the production ran from 18 to 21 April.

Set sometime in the 1960s in a chalet near Chamonix, the play opened with Daniel Corban, played by Jon Manley, fixing himself a drink, before a visit from the local police Inspector. It was a nice quiet moment, not rushed, showing tension and fear in the character before the trap is sprung around him.

Once the Inspector arrived, played by Jo Matthews, the quiet was broken as the two immediately starting shouting at each other. Corban had a lot to shout about, his wife was missing and he wanted to know what the police were doing about finding her. The Inspector was shouting to try and calm the shouting Corban, reassuring him that she was determined to find his wife, but that nothing would be achieved by shouting. And so their characters were set for the night, tense, awkward, and shouting. It was an uncomfortable scene and so it should be, but starting so high with volume and tension, it was difficult to see where else the play could go but down.

Fortunately, Corban’s descent is all part of the action and Manley gives a delightfully horrific breakdown. As a woman returns purporting to be his wife, he struggles to convince people that she is not the woman he married. The audience is left wondering who is telling the truth. As Elizabeth Corban, Jo Osborne leaves the audience guessing, at times persuasive and at times too mysterious to be true, is she a fraud trying to steal an inheritance or simply a newlywed who needed to escape her husband and his questionable mental health?

There are twists and turns, with Colin Peters given some great material as Maximin, a local priest who knows more than he is letting on. He offers the balance to the Inspector’s shouting, with a soft performance that makes his development all the more interesting with understated menace and an unhealthy support of Elizabeth.

With no let up in the first half, the arrival of Merluche the Tramp after the interval, played by David Gent, brought some welcome light relief. Finally Corban was offered some hope, and for a few cheerful minutes it seemed safe to relax. The same trick was pulled in a different fashion, but to great effect, with the arrival of Di Davies as the nurse, another character who had met Elizabeth, so could reveal whether or not the woman in the Chalet was a fraud. Neither of these encounters end as you would expect.

But, of course, in the world of thrillers we have to expect that everyone is a fraud, that nobody is really who they seem, and the question the audience should be considering has nothing to do with whether or not the woman is Corban’s wife – more why would anyone want to drive Corban to a breakdown?

And so when the big reveal comes, Gant’s direction had clearly signposted the way for an attentive audience. Given the presentation of the relationship between Corban and the Inspector, there is no real justification for the police to carry on investigating, and I’m sure there was a moment when one character said, “this wouldn’t happen in the real world” as if dropping out of the character they are trying to present to Corban.

As the evening drops with Manley into some very dark territory, his final scenes are well realised and as the night comes full circle, it becomes clear that his is the only character who is exactly what he seemed, just as presented in that first beautiful moment of quiet.

A great production for those who like to be kept guessing.

Last Review from the Palace Theatre: Footloose

Previous Reviews from Bijou Theatre Productions: Table Manners and And Then There Were None