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Kiss of Death is a modern dark thriller. Actress Zoe Lang attends an unusual improvisation workshop and finds herself auditioning as bait for serial killer “The Surgeon.” As young runaway Natasha Campion she meets sinister and manipulative John Smith, who makes her act out with him a disturbing scene he has scripted. There are many twists and turns as Zoe and the police team she is working for home in on their target – only to find that the target has never been that far away…
This well-written play showcased four first-rate actors. Brazen, mini-skirted, gum-chewing Zoe (Anna Langridge) could pout for England, but was haunted by childhood experiences, and we feared for her as she plunged deeper into danger. Wally Ross-Gower played Detective Superintendent George Brocklebank as the chain-smoking, whisky-swilling, rule-bending policeman of 70s television. There was always something distasteful about him, and learning that he was the Surgeon was, while a shock, not a surprise. There was an uncomfortable sleaziness in the way he fondled Zoe’s neck and touched her hair, which resonated when we learnt the truth.
Paul Leblanc Smith was detached criminal psychologist Bernard, working with Brocklebank, and his exchanges with Zoe provided some black humour. By the end they were allies in unveiling the Surgeon, and the transformation was very convincing. Colin Wolrich had less to do as John Smith, but was wonderfully sinister, until he softened when revealing to Zoe that this was only a training exercise (so he thought!).
Modern technology played such a large part it could have featured in the cast list. Zoe’s ‘audition’ was captured on video and displayed on three separate monitors. While her back was to the audience, we could see her head-on on the screens, acting out a tragic fantasy, and the technique was used effectively elsewhere in the play. Mobile phones also played their part. Generally we only heard one side of the conversation, imagining what was happening at the other end. But Zoe’s calls from sinister John Smith were on speakerphone so we could share her terror and distress as Smith revealed a suspicious knowledge of her past. Pulses quickened through the playing of tapes of Zoe’s experiences and those of a previous murder victim. And well-chosen music between scenes included a Jaws-like strings theme, raising the hairs on the back of the neck.
There were two stark sets – the sterile grey former lecture theatre and the bleak grimy room to which John Smith lured Zoe. Scene changes were clever but simple, the stage crew walking the room walls from one side of the stage to the other using the pivotal revolving stage. Altogether a chilling evening of dark, sardonic humour punctuating a mood of prevailing menace, superbly acted and directed.
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