Four days after the Studd by name and stud by nature chauffer (Joshua Wichard) is strangled by a red silk scarf at the annual fancy dress ball of Lady Lebanon (Rula Lenska), the host is visited by a brace of policemen in Detective Sergeant Totti (Charles Clements) and Chief Superintendent Tanner (Gray O’Brien), the designations of whom she describes as “How quaint!”

A fitting critique of Anthony Lampard’s new adaptation of Edgar Wallace’s murder mystery The Case of the Frightened Lady which though graced with fine performances from the thirteen-strong cast lacks depth and excitement.

A weakness exacerbated by director Roy Marsden’s decision to mark the majority of first half scene changes with an empty silence and a subtle shift of lighting. And the constant toing and froing of the lowly servants who cross the stage with the brisk regularity of a staff nurse in a busy A&E after a heated Glasgow derby as they bemoan the fact that they “must make allowances for the peculiar tendencies of the well-bred.”

The only moral of which seems to be Lady Lebanon’s advice to the titular frightened lady Isla Crane (April Pearson): not to worry about things which don’t concern you. Or as we say in Scotland: dinnae fash yersel’.

Over the course of two hour-long acts and before a grand entrance hall of red granite adorned with the family motto “Our faith is our strength”, the body count doubles, secrets are unearthed, the finger of suspicion is pointed here, there and thither, and a rabbit is pulled from a hat in a gun-totting finale which raises the pulse in an otherwise staid production by The Classic Thriller Theatre Company which like Lady Lebanon’s description of the second victim is quickly forgotten.

Peter Callaghan
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