Mindgame (Modern Playwrights) (Oberon Modern Plays)

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Another run of performances took place at the Ambassadors Theatre in London in 2018, following a UK tour. However, PETER HEPPLE for THE STAGE says, "Of course it is all rather silly at the end, the playwright having contrived a conclusion which is not unexpected, but still oddly unsatisfying.

Once the cat-and-mouse game gets under way in earnest, subtle transformations begin to take place on Beowulf Boritt’s funhouse set. But we get the point, already, without all the repetitive speeches, and we’d appreciate a bit more action.The protean set is designed, of course, to illustrate the scribe’s central thesis that appearances are deceptive and that even the most rational mind can be clouded by lies, trickery, misdirection and its own preconceived notions about reality. First he has to get past Dr Farquhar, the quixotic head of Fairfields - the asylum where Easterman is kept. Perhaps because Styler has been thrown off-stride by the slutty getup worn by Nurse Plimpton (Kathleen McNenny, in the Barbara Steele role), he fails to convince the eccentric psychiatrist that his literary intentions are honorable. Horowitz's attempts to shock and chill turns into a complete farce -the nearest I got to feeling a chill was from the ice in the Coca-Cola I drank during the interval. Styler is tricked into thinking he is Easterman, and they think up various methods, but in the end Styler suffocates her with a carrier bag.

However, the nightmare begins when, for some extraordinary reason, Styler agrees to try on a straight jacket! Farquhar, seemingly annoyed at this, retrieves a strait jacket from a closet and offers to put it on Styler to show what it is like, and he reluctantly agrees. This is one play where seeing isn't quite believing and reading the text is the only way to uncover all the clues. CHARLES SPENCER for THE DAILY TELEGRAGH liked the play describing it as an "Highly entertaining schlock-horror show.

He arrives at 'Fairfields', an experimental hospital for the criminally insane, hoping to get an interview with serial killer Eastman for his next novel. It introduces a detective by the name of Daniel Hawthorne - a rather dark and dangerous man whom I actually met on the set of Injustice.

All of the narrative is in the form of a play script but the author also lets us in on things that the more observant audience member may see on set.However, there is something odd about Dr Farquhar who one minute refuses to allow such an interview and attempts to send the author away and then changes his mind and starts to probe the author with his own strange questions. It is a short book but it gets over some of my complaints about short books as I had no problem at all picturing the actors on the described stage and it certainly creates an atmosphere. He is also a well-known children's author with a dozen books including two collections of horror stories to his name. Godart is also a man of many faces, all of them set in expressions of wary distrust as Mark Styler, a bestselling crime author hoping to get an interview with a cannibal serial killer who has been locked up at Fairfields for the past 30 years. In the end, Styler is forced to believe he is Easterman, however it is never explicitly revealed to the audience who is actually who.