Murderous story retold at the Theatre Royal, in Bury St Edmunds
Bill Kenwright presents A Judgement in Stone, adapted from one of the most celebrated works of Ruth Rendell often hailed as the successor to Agatha Christie.
Eunice struggles to fit in. When she joins a wealthy family as their housekeeper the very reason for her awkwardness, long hidden and deeply buried leads inexorably to a terrible tale of murder in cold blood – on Valentine’s Day.
Building on the phenomenal decade-long success of The Agatha Christie Theatre Company, which sold over two million tickets and continually played to packed houses around the UK, Ruth Rendell’s brilliant plot unravels a lifetime of deceit, despair and cover-ups which, when revealed, brings a shocking revelation almost as grisly as murder itself and is being staged at the Theatre Royal, in Bury St Edmunds, from Monday to Saturday, October 2 to 7.
Continuing a successful UK-wide tour throughout 2017, Chris Ellison and Robert Duncan will now join the cast. Ellison is well-loved for his longstanding role as ITV’s DCI Frank Burnside in The Bill and Burnside and returns to familiar territory as Detective Superintendent Vetch. Robert Duncan, best known for Drop The Dead Donkey’s Gus Hedges takes on the role of proud patriarch George Coverdale.
Continuing in the cast are: Sophie Ward (Young Sherlock Holmes, Heartbeat), Deborah Grant (Not Going Out, Roger, Roger), Shirley Anne Field (The Entertainer, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning), Antony Costa (Blood Brothers, Tommy) and Ben Nealon (Soldier Soldier, Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India).
Directed by Roy Marsden, perhaps best known as an actor but who has also been directing plays since he was 15 years old and has had two successful West End runs with Noel Coward’s Volcano and Agatha Christie’s A Daughter’s A Daughter (under the pen name Mary Westmacott).
A Judgement in Stone has been adapted for the stage by Simon Brett and Antony Lampard, designer Julie Godfrey, lighting designer Malcolm Rippeth and sound designer Dan Samson.