Our next production

STONE COLD MURDER, a thriller by James Cawood, premieres on 5 September, 2013. 

A windswept country house hotel in a desolate corner of the English Lake District. The storm howls around the old building, the logs in the fire spit and hiss. Suddenly cutting through the darkness, there’s a panicked knocking at the door. And the evening begins… This is of course a classic set up for a thriller: a wicked cocktail of suspense and atmosphere that as a child James Cawood was fascinated with. From the first time he saw an Alfred Hitchcock movie as a six year old or the first time he tucked himself under the sheets to read Agatha Christie by torchlight, he has been obsessed with fear and foreboding, what it takes to build suspense and make you jump. There’s something irrationally intoxicating about being scared. And this is a play about just that: being terrified. Robert and Olivia are settling down for a cosy night by the fire. Their hotel is closed for the winter and there’s nothing to worry about except pouring a drink and happily relaxing. But of course, the rules of thrillers dictate that this will never happen. The novelist PD James once wrote in her majestic essay TALKING ABOUT DETECTIVE FICTION, that any motive for murder will always be one of the four L’s: Love, Lust, Loathing and Lucre. Or perhaps a combination of all four? STONE COLD MURDER explores what it is to live in fear, with secrets and regrets and goes a long way to prove the old adage true: you can run, but you can’t hide.

“Tense, gripping and intricately crafted” Vienna Review

“Cawood is an author worth keeping an eye on.” Wiener Zeitung