• Bob Jackson
• Barbara Jackson
• Julie Jackson
• Helen Kroger
• Peter Kroger
• Stewart
• Thelma
• Sally

• Director
• Stage Manager
• Assistant Stage Manager
• Props
• Lighting Design
• Lighting& Sound
• Continuity
• Set design
• wardrobe
• S
• programme/Poster design

• Alan Lade
• Tricia Pape
• Kimberley Payne
• Sandra Haynes
• David Parton
• Roland Boorman
• Lindsey Holledge
• Josie Hobbs

• Ian Clegg
• Phil Armstrong
• Milli Palmer-Wright
• Eva Tayler
• Gary English
• Ian Baldwin
• John Hamilton
• Alan Lade
• Helena Bell, the cast & Marie Mason
• Alan lade

SEAFORD GAZETTE Review by Derek Watts

This thriller [a 1983 play by English writer Hugh Whitemore], set in the winter of 1960-61 in Ruislip, is inspired by actual Cold War events, though it is the bland ordinariness of suburban London which is a counterpoint to the high drama of an international spy ring.

The plot centres on Bob and Barbara Jackson and their neighbours, Peter and Helen Kroger, who seem a convivial Canadian couple. Then Mr. Stewart, a mysterious stranger arrives, describing himself as a ‘civil servant’. He politely coerces the Jacksons into allowing their house to be used as a surveillance post. In the nightmare months that follow, the Jacksons' comfortable life is shattered as the truth about their much-loved friends is gradually revealed to them.

Tricia Pape gave a believable and sympathetic reading of Barbara, conveying her bewilderment  as, helpless in an alien world of deception and treachery, she is faced with the agonizing realization that the Krogers have betrayed her and she, in turn, has betrayed the Krogers.

Alan Lade as her husband, a decent, middle-of the road sort of chap, showed in his understated performance the anxiety to do the right thing by the authorities and the increasing tension as he dealt with his distraught wife. And it was not only his wife……..Kim Payne, as the Jacksons’  daughter Julie, was terrific, ranging from stroppy teenager who just longed to ride on Malcolm’s motor-bike, to quietly vulnerable as she learns of ‘Auntie’ Helen’s double-life, then stridently incredulous as she rose to a crescendo on ‘How could she ?’

The Krogers were somewhat less credible. David Parton was solidly bland as Peter, the antiquarian book-seller, his best moment his story of his journey from Morris Cohen, New York Jewish Communist to Cold War spy. Sandra Haynes as his wife, required to be warmly suburban and brightly friendly, was certainly that, but there was little in her performance to suggest a double agent. Perhaps that was why she, and Peter, got away with it for so long - until the couple were arrested and charged with espionage in 1961.

The core of the drama was Roland Boorman’s superbly urbane, low-key but totally believable MI5 man. He was just right, conveying beneath the facade of a friendly family doctor the totally focussed spook, persuasive, firm, yet totally polite. 

The two female agents, foisted on the Jacksons for weeks on end, were Lindsey Holledge’s perky sarf London Thelma and Josie Hobbs’ quieter Sally.

A thoroughly good evening – Ian Clegg directed this intriguing slice of Cold War reality with subtlety and aplomb – and once again, Alan Lade’s set design was ingenuity itself.