Writer: Mai Stacey
Director: Mai Stacey
Sasha and her friends accept a free holiday at her uncle’s country house in the summer of 1998, a time when it seemed that things could only get better.
Only they don’t. Once Sasha’s uncle (Joe McCloskey) is established as a misogynist and sexual predator things go rapidly downhill. We’re straight into big old creepy house tropes as Sasha (Abbie Want), Henry (Finn Kennedy Macmillan), Cedric (Jamie Radcliffe) and Rose (Jessica Knight) try to figure out whether to stay or go.
We’re soon plunged into a messed-up murder mystery when Uncle Ernest’s body is discovered on the front steps. Improbably the quartet agree neither to call the police nor to end their rural sojourn. With suspicion and twisted desire hanging in the air, it remains to be seen where the plot will go next as it staggers towards a rather abrupt conclusion.
This isn’t the best or worst Fringe show of recent years from Minotaur Theatre Company; it belongs respectably in the middle. The script is a little rough round the edges, with more youthful exuberance than nuance, and there are some curiosities. Emphasis is laid on Ernest’s house having secret doors and his having a study in the attic. It sounds as if these details will be important later in the story but they’re never mentioned again.
Nevertheless writer-director Mai Stacey keeps the audience entertained with a comedy thriller that may be hokum but has genuinely sinister overtones. The characters are well differentiated and the cast’s timing and energy are on point. The whole production team is bound to have learned much of value from this experience by the time it heads back to UEA Drama Studio.
Runs until 15 August 2026 | Image: Contributed
