Erith Playhouse will keep audiences in the dark until the very end in their forthcoming production of Wait Until Dark.

The main ingredients of this absorbing drama, which runs from December 3 to 8, are a doll stuffed with heroin hidden in a basement flat in Notting Hill Gate, three sinister men and a blind woman alone in the flat.

The three men are there to find the doll by trick or foul means. The young woman, with the help of a 12-year-old girl, uses her blindness to try to outwit them.

The girl will be played by Clare Brunton, herself aged 12 and a member of KATS, a group for young people which meets at The Playhouse on Saturday mornings.

Although she has played small parts in other productions, this is her debut in a principal part at Erith Playhouse.

The play was written by Frederick Knott, who also wrote Dial M for Murder. It made its West End debut with Honor Blackman in the female lead and was subsequently made into a film starring Audrey Hepburn.

Wait until Dark has been described as an exercise in theatre suspense with expertly- calculated developments leading to its climax.

December 3-8, Wait Until Dark, Erith Playhouse, Erith High Street, Erith, Mon-Sat 8pm, £5, 01322 350345.

November 26, 2001 11:11

Joan Gardner