I Don't Understand The Plot  Mrs Bond had spent the entire play as a lemon-sucking old ratbag, and a suspicious lemon-sucking old ratbag at that. But her deadly secret was that the seemingly innocent Sarah was stark staring mad with a prediliction for poisoning domestic pets. When Gran discovers this, Sarah attempts to poison her too.

Director's Commentary  The first one I directed and the first of Ailsa's trademark appearances as a lemon-sucking old ratbag. The small cast was ideally suited to the broomcupboard-esque ambience of Spring Street Studio Theatre. Naturally, it wasn’t all plain sailing. I’d cast Steve Beal as Luke but had to sack him when he didn’t turn up to any rehearsals for the first month. Then, his replacement, a guy named Clive, went into hospital with one week to go leaving me with no other option but to learn the part in two days! Val and Elaine had really worked hard at rehearsals on the final tense moment between Sarah and a sickly, chairbound Gran and on the nights they really went for it and, though I may be looking at it through rose-tinted glasses, I still reckon it stands as one of the best scenes we’ve done. As it turned out, this was the last play we did at Spring Street, as they'd double booked our next date with, surprise, a rehearsal of Bouncers. We'd had more than enough of Hull Truck treating us like dirt so we told them where they could stick their Studio Theatre. David

Quote, Unquote  I remember the dreadful hairdo I chose, and the severe specs.  Friends who came to see it didn't recognise me until they saw my name in the programme!  I remember forgetting (!) how to get a prompt, and standing in dreadful, silent isolation on the stage for about half an hour (at least that's how long it felt) until Betty rescued me. I'll never forget the on-stage row between Val and Elaine in the final scene Ailsa

The Audience Won't Notice  Hull Truck's dodgy lighting board gave our poor ASM several electric shocks. Luckily for her there weren't many lighting cues. The attentive audient may also have spotted Dave Barber’s valiant attempt to get through the whole play without once removing his hands from his pockets! The only time he did was on the Saturday night, while jangling his loose change, he dropped coins all over the stage and then wandered round picking them up, spoiling a particularly tense moment.

Was I In That One?  This was the only confirmed sighting of Jeannie who was three months pregnant at the time of performance. As she was playing a sculptor we could cover it with a very loose artists smock, but you still might get a clue from the photographs. Although Elaine stayed with the group until the end of the year, this was the last time she was actually on stage.