RED Shift's remarkable adaptation of the Graham Greene thriller thrilled last Wednesday's audience at Chipping Norton.

Before the performance, it was hard to imagine how a stage show could come anywhere near to the brooding, corrupt atmosphere of post-war Vienna created by Carol Reed's 1949 film noir. But a clever and adaptable set, brilliant lighting effects and superb performances from the ensemble brought Greene's story to life.

Interestingly, it was these old-fashioned virtues which made for top-class theatre, rather than the use of film projection, which had a limited effect, and the webcam and TV screens, which seemed almost totally superfluous.

Full marks to the adaptor and director Jonathan Holloway for an original work which paid tribute to a film classic without trying to ape it - especially in the famous scene where the apparently dead Harry Lime (played by Orson Welles) is seen in half-light by his friend Rollo Martins. No attempt was made to copy the scene but the effect was just as dramatic.

The six actors maintain a high standard. Antony Gabriel is a perfect Rollo, an engaging mixture of naive optimist and hopeless drunk and Justin Webb captures perfectly the cynical, hopelessly corrupt Lime, who feels no regret that his adulterated black market penicillin is killing children.

The play is at Tewkesbury's Roses Theatre on Thursday, November 4.

REVIEW BY STEVE EVANS