The premise of Wait Until Dark, Frederick Knott's highly-venerated thriller, is simple enough: A gang of crooks use trickery, threats and finally outright violence to lay their hands on a heroin-filled doll hidden in a blind woman's apartment.
However, from the moment we meet the three villains (Derren Nesbitt, James Carlton and Michael Melia), we are bombarded with information which goes far beyond the need to tell us how and why their quarry came to be where it is.
Long after the men have set about their search, we continue to be assailed with expositional details, plot twists and recapitulations most of them delivered verbally.
Joe Harmston's sensible decision to set his production in the Sixties may allay concerns about anachronisms (such as all those fourpence phone calls from the box down the road) but it can't obscure the sound of creaking dialogue.
This, though, is a thriller and much can be forgiven if there are enough thrills in evidence. It's certainly engrossing, in the first half, to watch Susy (Susie Amy) stumble unknowingly into increasing danger.
And yes, it's overtly exciting when, in the second half, she gets wise to the wiles of her three visitors and uses her blindness to lay the ground for a spectacular fightback.
By the time we reach the climactic encounter, the suspense should therefore be wound up ready to snap.
It doesn't snap, though, it unwinds, over a long, overwritten scene in which Derren Nesbitt luxuriates in his pantomime villainy though he can't be blamed for Knott's decision to overload an amply evil character with a half-baked streak of sexual sadism.
If, despite its faults, the play makes for an entertaining pair of hours, it's in no small way thanks to Susie Amy's fascinatingly credible performance as the blind heroine.
Credit is also due to designer Paul Farnsworth for his lovingly-detailed set (all the way down to the authentic-looking bottle of Mazola cooking oil), as well as to star-in-the-making Minnie Crowe, superb in the role of Gloria, the huffy but helpful schoolgirl from upstairs.
Showing until Sat, August 6. Call 08700 606650.
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