REVIEW: My Cousin Rachel

Studio Theatre, Ashley Road, Salisbury

ALBEIT with fine support - from Jemma Hurd-Kirby and Paul Chalmers' as father and daughter and concerned neighbours Louise and Nicholas Kendall, David Rhodes as observant servant Seecombe and, in full stage Italian mode, Terry D'Onofrio – Diana Morgan's dramatisation of Daphne du Maurier's novel is very much a two handed affair: will young Philip Ashley (Duncan Ericson) succumb to the charms of his deceased guardian and uncle's widow Rachel (Rachel Fletcher)? Or could his jealousy and dark suspicions of her, backed by enormous amounts of circumstantial evidence, prove only too well founded?

Fletcher maintains a firm ambivalence, while Ericson ratchets up the passion to the point of something like madness, and this production is graced with a beautiful set and costumes, but the simple plot does seem to wear thin at times, though it keeps you guessing, until it reaches its tragic, not entirely expected, somewhat risible conclusion.

Ham Quentin

(COR)