The Case of the Frightened Lady

Producer Bill Kenwright has enjoyed a long and successful run with the Agatha Christie Theatre Company, touring adaptations of her most popular novels to packed houses around the UK.

Kenwright’s Classic Thriller Company aims to continue this success with works by writers other than Christie. The company’s current offering is a staging of Edgar Wallace’s 1931 thriller The Case of the Frightened Lady.

Sadly, Antony Lampard’s adaptation is a distressingly turgid affair, slavishly adhering to a style of playwriting that thrived in the 1930s. All the action takes place in the hallway of a stately home, while all the interesting stuff – affairs, murders and a fancy dress party – take place elsewhere, only to be reported back. The plot is formulaic and Lampard makes absolutely no attempt to update either the staging or the way the material is handled.

Former Coronation Street actor Gray O’Brien as Chief Superintendent Tanner handles the material respectfully enough, but there’s nothing here for him to get his teeth into.

There’s also no real sleuthing to engage the audience, just a series of informal interrogations with a succession of two-dimensional characters. Rula Lenska wanders on and off imperiously as the haughty Lady Lebanon while ex-Skins star April Pearson plays a woefully underwritten damsel in distress. Glenn Carter struggles to look suitably menacing as the mysterious footman Gilder.

Roy Marsden’s production flounders awkwardly, but it’s understandable given the material – this is a thriller with practically no thrills whatsoever.