Worcestershire | Archive | 2003 | June | 13
From the archive, first published Friday 13th Jun 2003.
THERE may not be a Ford Capri or a perm in sight, but The Edge of Darkness will still have you on the edge of your seat.
At least according to Liza Goddard, who headlines when the thriller plays Malvern Festival Theatre next week.
Darkness was written by Brian Clemens, famous for his creation of those television epics The Avengers and The Professionals, but he's taken neither the vehicles nor the barnets on board this time.
The play is set in Victorian times, an era that's causing Liza G some problems since the production is on tour in mid-summer.
"All those wigs and laced up bodices," she gasped. "They're so hot. I feel like I could do with an ice pack down my front."
Over the years there would have been a few young men lined up to provide that, for Liza has caused many a testosterone surge in her roles as upper crust tottie, notably Victoria in Take Three Girls and later getting under John Nettles' collar as Philippa Vale in Bergerac.
Now she cuts a more classic figure, well at home in elegant frocks, as she showed when at Malvern in 2000 in Lady Windermere's Fan, all bustle and bodice.
"I'm so looking forward to going back to Malvern," Liza enthused. "They put me in such wonderful digs there. We have so much fun it's almost an effort to drag myself down to the theatre."
Edge of Darkness she describes as a "Gothic thriller".
All the ingredients are there - a suspicious butler, late night gentlemen callers, a hefty inheritance and a gloomy house late at night.
The action centres around the wealthy Cranwell family, whose daughter Emma (Clare McGlinn) turns up in hospital after going missing for several years.
But where has she been? And what ghosts haunt her now?
Mother Laura (Liza Goddard) and father Max (played by Tony Scannell, who solved a few mysteries as Ted Roach in The Bill) try to get to the bottom of it.
The Edge of Darkness plays Malvern Festival Theatre from Monday, June 23 until Saturday, June 28. Tickets £10-£18. Box office 01684 892277.
© Newsquest Media Group 2008