EMLYN Williams wrote his play Night Must Fall in 1935, long before the majority of the population felt themselves equipped to diagnose narcissism and most of the burgeoning number of psychiatric and psychological dis-eases of their fellow humans. But early audiences had absolutely no doubt that there was something very rum about Dan, the chipper page boy from the flashy new hotel near where the demandingly hypochondriac Mrs Bramson lived in her isolated house on the Essex marshes.

Sally Marshall’s production of the play, on at Salisbury Studio Theatre in Ashley Road until 19th October, brilliantly captures the claustrophobic nature of the dreadful Mrs Bramson’s empire. She is dictatorial, suspicious, parsimonious and self-centred, and her household is expected to bow to her every whim. Joanna Daniels personifies this woman, who treats her impecunious niece Olivia (Clare Green) as a servant, and her cook and maid as slaves. We don’t question the old woman’s sanity … she’s all too recognisable.

When the maid’s “young man”, Dan, arrives on the scene, he transforms life at the big house, turning Mrs B into a kittenish and partial pseudo-parent, fawning over her new resident.

Just as the sun rises, night must fall, and as details of a missing woman turn into a hunt for her killer, we the audience, and most of the characters in the play, see the inevitability of Dan’s presence. But Mrs Terence the cook (Lucy Salmon, whose perfect sense of timing brings welcome comedy to the play) and Dora the pregnant maid (Antonia Harding) are in the thick of it, and like Olivia’s suitor, the pompously boring Hubert (Matt Hodge) don’t want to see what is before their eyes.

Jamie Pullen makes the most of his moments as the detective from Scotland Yard. Olivia’s is the most difficult role in the play – is she a shy and bookish simple soul looking for love, but only with a bit of excitement, or one of those women who seem inexorably drawn to violent danger?

Adam Barge relished the complex role of Dan, weaving his way into the household, becoming indispensable and finally making his move. This is a multi-layered character, one whose sanity would be rigorously questioned in these more “enlightened” days. Is there such a thing as a born bad’un, or can it all be blamed on the parents, the state, the teachers, the social media …?
Emlyn Williams has no doubts about that, and nor did the audience after Adam Barge’s extraordinarily convincing melt-down. It’s a memorable performance in an excellent production of a lastingly interesting play.

GP-W

Photographs by Trinity Photography