"SOMEONE AT THE DOOR."

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 61, 14 March 1939, Page 5

"SOMEONE AT THE DOOR."

It is a phase of modern journalism that outsiders with no connection with the profession can often earn more than the legitimate free-lance journalist,simply because their names have publicity value of some kind. This fact forms the basis of the plot of "Someone at the Door," the bright comedy-thriller by Dorothy and Campbell Christie which is to be presented by the Thespians for a season commencing on Saturday night next in the Town Hall Concert Chamber. Ronnie Martin is a free-lance journalist, always bubbling over with unsuccessful ideas. He decides that he must become notorious in order to sell, his work, so he conceives the ideaC of staging a mock murder. All goes swimmingly until a gang of crooks in search of some stolen jewels appear on the scene, and a real murder adds unexpected complications to Ronnie's plot. However, as full of ideas as ever, Ronnie manages to get things straightened out, though not quite as he had expected, in a third act which provides more thrills than have been seen on the stage in "Wellington for a long time. The cast, the strongest ever to appear in an amateur production here, includes Joan Goodwin as Sally Martin Myles F. E. Wright as her brother Ronnie, Selwyn Toogood as her fiance, Bill Reid, R. J. Larkin as Price, the sinister butler, H. A. Painter as the autocratic Sergeant Spedding, John McCreary as Harry Kapel, and Arthur Rayner as the village constable. The play is being produced by Victor S. Lloyd. The stage manager is Evan Harrowell, Susie Painter is the property mistress, and the prompter is Jack McLeod. Particulars regarding the booking are advertised.