“What are you doing with this gun?”“That’s none of your business!”
I do love a good mystery and I certainly enjoyed my mysterious journey watching The Classic Thriller Theatre Company’s ‘The Lady Vanishes’ at Venue Cymru, Llandudno. Produced by Bill Kenwright, The Lady Vanishes opens with some excellent mood-inducing and eye-catching dramatic scenery from Designer Morgan Large which got us all rooted in our seats awaiting the historic story to unfold. Juliet Mills and one of my favourite original Dynasty actors Maxwell Caulfield lead the cast as real life husband and wife in this latest adaptation based on the 1938 Hitchcock-directed film of the same name.
Celebrated Emmy award-winning actress Juliet Mills’ debut was with her father John Mills in the movie In Which We Serve, aged just 11 weeks! More recently, in ITV’s Wild at Heart, she portrayed Caroline DuPlessis’ sister played by real-life sister Hayley. Her major stage debut was in Peter Shaffer’s Five Finger Exercise, in which she starred in the West End and on Broadway age 16.
Award-winning Maxwell Caulfield’s numerous big screen and TV roles include starring with Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2 and as Miles Colby in the hit American soap opera Dynasty and its spin-off series The Colbys. Maxwell made his Broadway debut in J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls and his West End stage debut as Billy Flynn in Chicago. The cast also features Lorna Fitzgerald, fresh from her shock departure from the role of Abi Branning in BBC’s EastEnders, Matt Barber, Atticus Aldridge in Downtown Abbey and Robert Duncan, Drop The Dead Donkey.
When Socialite Iris’ unexpected travelling companion Miss Froy suddenly disappears, Iris is perplexed to find that all the other passengers deny ever having seen her. But with the help of musician Max, played by the charismatic and excellent actor Matt Barber, she turns detective, and together they try to solve the mystery of why the lady vanished…
Fitzgerald does a fine job of playing this feisty female turned detective, she brings a great enthusiasm and theatrical spark to the production and a great contrast to her previous well known Eastenders role. She is often on stage and holds her all and doesn’t seem to flag at all, in fact I would even go as far to say when the energy dipped a little as it did for me on one occasion her sparkiness brought it right back in no time! As mentioned the set really is spectacular, including a very effective 3D backdrop as we are greeted with a train station and all its sounds, sights and smells. Dan Samson and Charlie Morgan Jones have created such an atmospheric ambience with their sound and lighting respectively. We are introduced to more characters and soon the lights dim and there is a wonderful use of set where the platform effortlessly transforms into individual sliding carriages, a really inspirational piece of set design there! Suddenly it feels like we the audience are travelling along those tracks with them all to the Swiss border.
I found this a very admirable adaptation from Anthony Lampard as it is no easy feat bringing such a well known film to stage, and sometimes one can put the film version on a pedestal so the stage production can fall short.
Director Roy Marsden has given Hitchcock’s film a fresh feel and I think lives its new life very well on a stage. Mills gives a very watchable performance as the disappearing Miss Froy, and her final scene was very poignant! Although it was hard for me to envisage her real life husband Caulfield as anything other than the dashing young Miles Colby of Dynasty fame, he put on a great performance as Dr Hartz, and was glad to see he still carried a bit of that old Dynasty charm in his intriguing stage role! There is some accent work with most characters and I would say most cut it, however on occasion and I’m not entirely sure if it was a mic issue, but I did find myself leaning in at times so I could hear better, some lines were missed on me and more a general thing and not pinpointed to just one actor. Possibly when one is doing specific accent work annunciation is required even more.
The rest of the cast performed very well to keep us on the edge of our seats and helped to carry along this story with all the mystery and mayhem only a classic Hitchcock could bring!
The Lady Vanishes can be seen at Venue Cymru Llandudno until 15th June
Reviewer - Mary Fogg
on - 10/6/19
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