In his new play Nightcap, Francis Durbridge appears to assume  that if a yarn is worth spinning it is worth weaving it into a tapestry. The master craftsman of whodunnits this time turns to a soap opera scenario of social high flyers, and like their television counterparts the characters involved have an unnerving habit of repeating themselves. Maybe it is the complex plot, involving building scams in Malaga and time-sharing apartments, that makes each one of them repeat the story so far, maybe it's Durbridge’s radio experience.  Either way it would all move a sight faster without the constant reprises. Durbridge’s plot is suitably tricky—a tangled web with more red herrings than in the Russian trawler’s net.

Hilary Tindall heads the cast of familiar names with a performance which Director Val May needs to keep in check.  As the nervy Sarah Radford there is too much emphasis on staccato histrionics, too little on genuine emotion—no light and shade. Peter Byrne plays the nasty husband Jack Radford, Michael Craig the sympathetic police superintendent and Jaquie Toye the much maligned mutual friend. The problem is that with a running time of over 2 1/2 hours this whodunnit begins to resemble a when-are-they-going-to-do-it.