You have to ask yourself why Patricia Highsmith's psychological novel has been adapted for the stage.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 film version with Robert Walker and Farley Granger was an immediate hit and arguably helped the director to become a major player.

The reason is probably that Hitchcock's film was far from faithful to the book.

Highsmith was angry her architect character was replaced as a tennis player and she only ever spoke to Hitchcock once after she sold him the film rights and was never a fan of the film.

At least the stage adaptor Craig Warner has reinstated the architect character, one Guy Haines, even if most of the dialogue comes from neither the film nor the novel.

In fact, my first reaction to seeing this stage version was that we should all go away and reread the novel.

Strangers On A Train was Highsmith's first book and even then it had a European feel rather than an American, hard-boiled atmosphere.

The stage version really needs a much classier cast than the one in the current tour, in which most of the players have backgrounds in television soap operas, something of a sledgehammer school of acting.

Given this is not a whodunit - we know from the outset just who is the goody and who the baddy in the two murders that occur - what we need is subtlety, and that, I am sad to say, is in short supply.

Alex Ferns, wife-beater Trevor from EastEnders, does a reasonable job as Charles Bruno, the instigator of all the trouble.

Will Thorp, paramedic Woody from Casualty, is the angst and guilt-ridden and persecuted Haines. Both men soon become caricatures.

Similarly, Anita Harris and Andrew Stephen are never convincing as the mother and business partner, and Colin Baker remains just a slightly older Dr Who wearing a crumpled suit and sporting an American accent.

This leaves just Leah Bracknell to delight us in the role of Anne Faulkner, Haines's second wife.

She throws off her mantle as the pinched-faced lipstick lesbian Zoe Tate in Emmerdale to become the all-American girl trying to understand what is happening to her new husband.

My overall recommendation is read the book and experience the doyenne of American suspense fiction at its best.

Until Sat, call 08700 606650