THE PROBLEM with reviewing two separate productions of the same play within a matter of days is that one inevitably makes comparisons, but luckily the Players’ version was, in many respects, completely different to the BLTC one.
Perhaps the most marked difference was in the staging, with the Mowlem’s vast stage allowing for complete set changes between scenes. Realistic though those sets were, the time needed to change them added a good fifteen minutes to an already long play and caused quite a few people to leave during the final change, by which time it was almost three hours since curtain up.
Another difference was in the casting of the main characters, with the roles of John Malcolm and Mrs Shankland, who only appear in Act One, and Major Pollock and Sibyl Railton-Bell, seen only in Act Two, played by the same actors. Ro Smith created two very different and believable characters, and John Murphy also managed to look and sound completely different although his manner and facial expressions did not change sufficiently after his second act character was exposed as a fraud.
Among other roles, Dominic Haggard and Kerry Greener made impressive debuts as Mr & Mrs Stratton, Pauline Windle was excellently cast as Miss Cooper and Jean Rickard was an imperious Lady Matheson.

Linda Kirkman
Courtesy of the Bournemouth Daily Echo