People nestle into their seats, the lights come up to reveal a dull chilly grey. You hear the water from the sea…splashing…a mystery awaiting…something peculiar…your first question “What ever might happen?”

Maxim de Winter, Nigel Havers , of Manderley, Cornwall has found a wife to replace the late Rebecca. His new wife, Mrs De Winter, Elisabeth Dermot Walsh, is timid, youthful and innocent, unaware of the secrets lurking in her new world. Some of those she meets accept her, call her a ‘relief' stating ‘you are so good for him' but others, the unnerving and stern housekeeper Mrs Danvers, the excellent Maureen Beattie, prefers to live in their memories of the past.

Gradually Mrs De Winter begins to enquire, and the audience are carried along on the quest to find out what really happened to the ‘beautiful' Rebecca. You should be engrossed in the suspense but somewhere along the line the unfolding of the story fails to alight your curiosity.

Rebecca's name is said over and over again but there is something lacking in the spirit of that name - the facts are clear - her presence however is defiantly dead!

The cast shuffle through their line with little set, or props or background music for that matter. The only way of knowing day from night, room from room is by the changes in lighting. It is pretty much left up to the cast to create and the audience to imagine…

It reminded me of a story, people telling me a story, describing a series of events, but the story at its centre being a fine one, I just wish that it had been told, in this instance, with a little more excitement…a little more adventure…a little more mystery.