Born in Croydon, Clemens served his National Service where he was a weapons training instructor. When demobbed, he was offered a job as a private detective, but this involved moving to Leeds to take a training course – he preferred to remain at home instead. He worked his way up from messenger boy at advertising agency, to being a copywriter. In 1955 he had a thriller screenplay accepted by BBC TV.

Next he was a staff writer for the Danziger brothers, churning out dozens of ‘B grade’, half-hour television scripts, for series such as ‘Saber of London’ and ‘The Man from Interpol’. He then went on to write many of TV’s major classics, including ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘Danger Man’, ‘The Avengers’, ‘Adam Adamant Lives!’ and ‘Bergerac’. He even wrote the BBC TV sitcom, ‘My Wife Next Door’.

This timeless thriller from the Garrick Theatre Company can be seen at the Garrick Theatre, 16 Meadow Street, in Guildford. This two and a half hour play runs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8.00 until 15^th October. There are matinées on the 2^nd and 9^th October at 2.00 pm.

It is the year 2000 in the English countryside. All of the action takes place in a remote house, belonging to Maggie Miller, which has been converted from a windmill.

The sitting room is wood-panelled. The front door leads straight into the main room. A side door goes to the outhouse. A short staircase leads up to a small balcony with two bedrooms. Keith Abbott, with the assistance of Luke Bogaers, solidly built the fine set to Fred Petersen’s design. There is a special ‘fun’ prop by Ray Egan and Guildford Potters.

    It is senior flight attendant, Maggie’s 50^th birthday. She is holding a party for this special celebration.

    When there is no reply to her knocking, Maggie’s fellow Air Hostess, Ann (Anna Head), lets herself into the house with the secreted key only to find a scribbled note saying that Maggie has gone down to the village to pick up her birthday cake. A few minutes later, busybody neighbour, Jenny Rayner (Fiona Forster) arrives. Jenny is upset about the lack of intimate interest being shown by her husband Peter (Rodney Palmer), and has called around hoping to catch him ‘en flagrante’ with Maggie.

     Local odd-job boy, young Andy Flewin (Blake Prosser), who also fancies his chances with the older woman, calls with Maggie’s present to herself.

     The front door opens and in marches Flight Captain, Terry Dexter (Ben Lowther). He is Maggie’s latest conquest. Ann confides that she intends announcing her engagement to her partner, Steve (Ben Russell), at the party – but Maggie and Steve do not turn up for the celebrations. Where could they be? Murdered?

There was a short glitch, when a surge of power knocked out the computer controlling the sound and lights. Geoff Holt and Mark Owen were magnificent in getting to system back up. This is a fault that the technicians could not foresee, but this had to be one of the fastest recoveries that I have known. Many congrats. Admiration must go to the cast who also coped with the error very well.

The red herring clues flowed fast, as the entire cast accused each other of the murder. Two particularly fine performances from Anna Head and Fiona Forster. We were kept guessing who the murderer might be, right up to the final curtain. Creepy and packed with suspense.

Talented director, Fred Petersen, is the John Farnham of the community theatre; he has had more ‘final shows’ than anyone else. Thankfully, he keeps coming back with yet another superb presentation. Fred is one of the rare breed of directors who is willing to give newcomers a chance. He also ensures that each actor fully understands the character and personality of the part they are playing.

A most enjoyable murder story, clever script, and especially well acted.

This 130-minute, light-hearted comedy can be seen at the Garrick Theatre, 16 Meadow Street, Guildford each Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at 8.00 pm until Saturday 18^th December.

The action of the play takes place in 1948. It is set in the sitting room of a medical researcher’s home. The room has pale turquoise walls with an expensive, white, winged armchair and matching settee. The rear wall is a balcony overlooking the river and city.

The set was beautifully designed (Rodney Palmer and Lynda Stubbs), solidly built, and tastefully dressed, but unfortunately the ‘phone mouth piece had dropped out, and so the users spoke into space.

Even the massive cockroach that crawled the full height of the wall before taking off, liked the set. The actors never flickered – true courage.

       The maid, Betty (Belinda Djurdjevic) tidies up, whilst the smartly dressed, intelligent lady of the house, Clare Martin (Mary Murphy) is chatting to her best friend Isobel. The slightly neurotic and bossy, Isobel (Tayla Howard) is telling of her engagement to Nigel (Brendan Ellis), a scruffy self-employed artist.

      Clare explains how her husband, well-respected doctor, Sir Paul (Rhett Clarke) has returned home from a Cornish fishing trip with a disabled patient whom he wishes to have live in their house, rather than at the local hospital.

      The beautiful, longhaired patient, Miranda Trewella (Natalie Aung Than) it seems, is paralysed from the waist downwards, and so butler / chauffeur Charles (Rodney Palmer) has the task of carrying her into the house. Miranda flutters her eyelashes – that are longer than the finest Highland cow – as she flirts with all of the men. Jealous, Clare asks that Miranda be taken to her room, where she can be cared for by Nurse Carey (Christine Ellis), who is waiting, never suspecting for a second, the VERY strange events that will happen next.

The costumes (Lorna Mackie, Lynda Stubbs) were most stylish, perfect for the era and in Miranda’s case, superbly constructed. I heard Miranda’s statistics are 34-22-$34 a kilo.

The lighting on the city scene backdrop was a little poor, but with such a shallow stage, it is very difficult not to get the window frame shadows on the backcloth. However, the lighting effects for the storm were very good (Clayton Reichert) and the small amount of thunder good, but could have been further supplemented. Joshua Davies operated both the sound and lights skilfully.

The direction, by Rodney Palmer assisted by Lynda Stubbs, went very well, with the strong cast grasping their characters superbly. Natalie, Belinda, and Mary performed particularly well. Christine seemed to feel at home with the comedy genre, raising a few laughs.

The humour is subtle, but with some very dry lines. Plenty of chuckles throughout. A most pleasant night out. Recommended.