THE psychological thriller The Late Edwina Black was first performed 77 years ago, a drawing-room play that followed the then-current fashion for isolated houses, moody weather and unexplained deaths, set in 1895 long before the days of DNA but as policing was already becoming increasingly scientific.

Of course it is “old fashioned”, but the trick is to play it absolutely for real, and that’s what the Sue Gilroy Company is doing for this, the first of a season that cherishes the style and work ethic of the traditional summer rep.

Elizabeth Graham has been living for seven years as the companion to the increasingly difficult Mrs Edwina Black. During that time, she and Mr Gregory Black have fallen in love. Mrs Black is ill, bedridden latterly – and now she is dead. Lisa and Gregory are free to live away from the gloomy, threatening house. But then an inspector calls …

As it becomes clear that the doddery old doctor’s diagnosis of death from natural causes is a bit dubious, Scotland Yard is called in. And in a house where the only residents are the husband, the companion and the faithful retainer – all of whom stand to gain from the wealthy Mrs Black’s will – everyone is a suspect and Lisa and Gregory become more and more suspicious of one another.

You, like me, might have thought you knew whodunnit, but been unable to work out how. The denouement comes from a surprising twist and a realisation of herrings redder that you realised.

Congratulations to Nickie Johnson as the elderly and devotedly puritanical maid Ellen, and Andrew Fettes as the benevolent, charming and tenacious Inspector Martin, and to Victoria Porter and Tobias Deacon as the confused lovers, unable to put the memory of the malevolent Edwina behind them, as her presence fills the air of the house. They played with total conviction, dispelling any whiff of dated mothballs. It’s a brilliant start to a five-play season with continues with Ayckbourn’s Communicating Doors, George Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, Richard Harris’s Dead Guilty and Amanda Whittington’s Ladies Day, running in repertory until 26th August.

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Photographs by Noah Scott-Sentance