MARK Leipacher’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr Ripley has already been on a lengthy journey before its arrival in Salisbury – from where the intention is a (well-deserved) West End run.

This Faction production started life in 2015. Plans were scuppered by COVID, and it re-appeared, with a new cast, in 2025. Now this stunningly designed and brilliantly adapted version of Highsmith’s archetypal anti-hero novel has been honed into a theatrical experience that does full justice to the style of the period and the psychology of the characters. You really BELIEVE in the trio at the centre of the story, thanks to compelling interpretations by Ed McVey, Bruce Herbelin-Earle and Masie Smith.

Tom Ripley is a nobody, a young man on the edges of society making no real impression on anyone, resorting to minor blue-collar crimes and dodging the consequences. Then, out of the blue, he is approached by Herbert Greenleaf, a wealthy industrialist whose only son Dickie has gone to live in Italy, and won’t come back even though his mother is dying of cancer. An acquaintance has told Greenleaf that Ripley was a great friend of Dickie’s, though in fact the two young men barely knew each other. Greenleaf snr offers to pay for Tom to go to Italy to persuade his son to return. So begins Tom Ripley’s under-the-radar journey into serious evil, and murder is its obvious destination.

Ed McVey, best known as Prince William in The Crown, dispenses with all the royal charisma to meet his audience, to whom he talks, as a convincingly nondescript, gauche and clumsy young man – the polar opposite of Dickie, whose suave, elegant and universally attractive personality is captured by stage debutant Herbelin-Earle. In the background is Marge Sherwood, Dickie’s writer lover, played by EastEnders favourite Masie Smith.

The simple but dramatic staging, with its occasional breaks to reset the progress, adds to the excitement of the tale as we travel from New York through Italy and finally into a Greek dreamworld. The supporting cast, led by well known south-west based actor Christopher Bianchi and the creepily seductive Cary Crankson, adds momentum and threat.

This is a hugely impressive staging of a story most people know either from the book, or more recently from film and television adaptations, well worth a visit in Salisbury before its London return.

GP-W