WHEN Patricia Highsmith published her first Ripley story, The Talented Mr Ripley, in 1955, she created an anti-hero who would become one of her favourite characters and the star of many television and film adaptations. Ripley has now undergone another metamorphosis in a stage version, coming to Salisbury Playhouse, from Monday 27th April to Saturday 2nd May.

Tom Ripley is a nobody – scraping by in New York, forging signatures, telling little white lies … until a chance encounter changes everything. When a wealthy stranger offers him an all-expenses-paid trip to Italy to bring home his wayward son, Dickie Greenleaf, Tom leaps at the opportunity.

But in the sun-drenched glamour of 1950s Italy, surrounded by shimmering waters and whispered secrets, Tom is seduced by the life Dickie leads – the freedom, the wealth, the effortless charm.

Fascination turns to obsession, and as his grip tightens on Dickie’s world, the lines between truth and deception begin to blur. What starts as an opportunity spirals into a chilling game of lies, identity theft and murder.

Adaptations of The Talented Mr Ripley have included the 1999 film with Matt Damon in the title role, and the stylish black-and-white, eight-episode, Netflix dramatisation starring Andrew Scott.

The ten-strong stage ensemble is led by Ed McVey as Tom Ripley. Ed played Prince William in the Netflix show The Crown. Maisie Smith, an East Enders regular and Strictly Come Dancing finalist, plays Marge, and Bruce Herbelin-Earle is Dickie
Greenleaf.

This adaptation by Mark Leipacher, who also directs the production, brings the story to life with an immediacy that only the stage can offer. With razor-sharp dialogue, simmering tension and a dangerously charismatic antihero, expect to be pulled into the parallel universe of a killer con-man, a world of deception, desire, and deadly ambition. How far would you go to become someone else?