Written by JD Robins, by arrangement with Samuel French Ltd.
Directed by Val Coombs

Ben Seaton is the new rector of Wychcombe Magna and is slowly gaining acceptance with the locals. His wife Diana feels decidedly out of place and even rather threatened as a strange woman, Jessy, keeps walking into the house without any invitation and the church bells suddenly ring at odd times. When a statue is vandalized and a placard depicting a swastika is found in the graveyard, Diana's uneasiness escalates. Then the unthinkable happens -there is a murder at the rectory. Skeletons surface from the village's recent past - the death of a young girl, the involvement of a local man in a bullion robbery - and it becomes apparent that not everyone in the village is who they say they are. And then a second person is attacked.

Medstead Players staged a brave performance of JD Robins' Deliver Us from Evil. It was a ripping yarn for a chilly spring evening and one which had the audience spellbound. Who-dunnits are always good fun - if they are really worth their salt they leave you guessing until the last minute, and this version produced by arrangement with Samuel French Ltd and directed by Val Coombs, generated rife speculation among village theatre-goers.

The Players' was a sterling stab at a play which required liming, pace and the ability of the seven-strong cast to learn long sections of prose.

In addition, they had to deal with one or two key periods when the stage was empty, other than with noises off, or when the dialogue was sparse or replaced by action, requiring a definite skill in keeping the audience on board. But Medstead's amateur thespians were deft at capturing the essence of the play and the imagination of the auditorium, introducing a degree of humour, particularly in the form of the strange, woolly-hatted Jessy Beer - played with worrying clarity by Pam Kercher, and of Felix - the illusive ginger cat who, but for an unfortunate twist when he turned up dead in a box - having been hung from his neck in the belfry - could have been a number one suspect!

The demise of both characters left the audience even more puzzled about who was responsible for the litany of macabre events - some of them more akin to witchcraft than to the normal goings-on of an ecclesiastical household. The role of Ben Seaton - new rector of Wychcombe Magna, seemed to "fit like a glove" on Dominic Clifford, while Lesley Rae did an extremely good job of playing his troubled wife Diana. Hers was a demanding role. While the flowing locks helped strip back the years, she handled the obvious tragedy of losing a child with the sensitivity it deserved.

It is always difficult to build and maintain tension, but the audience was straining to keep up with a complex plot which skilfully wove in the history of the village, introducing old blood in the form of Emmeline Rawlins - convincingly portrayed by Carol Bedingfield, and the scoundrel nephew Peter - or was it Frank? - a character role played, one felt, with a certain degree of glee, by David Rae.

Born in the village, Meg Bestwood was another who found her past coming back to haunt her, with Anita Prior throwing up more false leads in the quest to guess who dunnit.

New to the village, Tim Bestwood - Stan Whitcher - appeared as much in the dark as the rector and his wife, although at times he too managed to attract the finger of guilt.

It was a complex play but one which was thoroughly enjoyed and which should earn Medstead Players if not gold, at least silver guilt!