If you have seen Alfred Hitchcock’s 1950s film version of Patricia Highsmith’s thriller novel Strangers On A Train you may be gutted to know that The Lace Market Theatre production, adapted for the stage by Craig Warner, doesn’t include a frantic blow by blow tennis match or an even more frantic death ride on a merry-go-round. It seems that Mr Hitchcock took the basic psychologically dark themes of the story, kept the key characters, yet went off on a completely different tangent to Patricia Highsmith’s writing. Thankfully, Craig Warner’s version is much more suitable for medium sized amateur stages like that at The Lace Market Theatre and they do an excellent job with it.

The two protagonists – Charles Bruno (Lewis Bowkett) and Guy Haines (Polis Loizou), and their fleeting murderous arrangements as strangers meeting on a train, offer insights into the terrifying proximity of life’s extremes—good and evil; love and hatred; and attraction and disgust—to each other. In this intimate and desperately psychological profile of man’s capacity for evil the playscript explores the nature of desire and necessity, testing the circumstances in which man might embrace the entirety of his being, in all its awful authenticity. And authenticity is the keyword to the terrific acting of both Bowkett and Loizou as finely directed by Clair Choubey. Haines represents human goodness, striving to be a good partner, son, and architect; Charles Bruno, however, is a corrupt and corrupting vision of vice and together they keep us gripped throughout the whole evening’s worth of this top class thriller.

The Strangers On A Train company are super solid support actors and their keen focus on their interactions means that not a moment on stage is without our equally keen ears and eyes listening and watching out for clues as to how the play will progress and conclude. In the interval we hear much debate in the theatre bar surrounding the first act and from the rush back down the stairs it seems that this audience can’t wait for the second half to begin.

The Lace Market Theatre sports a reduced company compared with that at London’s professional Gielgud Theatre production in 2013/2014. Tonight we enjoy the dramatic talents of Sarah Taylor (Elsie Bruno), Emily Stribbling (Anne Faulkner), Robert Treacher (Richard Fife), Frank Myers (Reiss Jones) and Arthur Gerard (Fraser Wanless) all of whom add considerably to the tense atmosphere.

This amateur production of Strangers On A Train is superb and the cleverly designed set by Guy Evans is given its full stage creative usage enhanced by the lighting by Nick Gale and the minimal usage of props. Everything about this gorgeous production smacks of high quality.

Such is the nature of thrillers including this ‘Will They Do it?’ film noir influenced classic that I feel duty bound as an honest critic to keep schtum about revealing anything more about the story. All I will say is “book now as tickets are going faster than a bullet train, and enjoy the ride.”

Strangers On A Train runs at The Lace Market Theatre until Saturday 1st June 2024.