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The Turn of the Screw, New Forest Players, Performing Arts Centre, Ballard School, New Milton

IT was a pity that there were so few people at the first night of this totally absorbing play, because it deserves full houses for the amount of work that has clearly been put into it.

Based on Henry James’ 1898 novel, it is set at a country house in Essex, where a new young governess has been hired - with seemingly undue haste - to look after two orphaned children.

Events soon prove that something is very wrong, and the fact that we never really know for sure whether that something is real, or is simply the product of a deluded mind is what makes this such an absorbing piece of theatre.

Director Tim Schuler has paced the production extremely well, and his cast do him proud. Emma Moran excels as the governess, Miss Grey, with a beautifully rounded performance. There is a real sense of friendship between Miss Grey and Mrs Grose, the housekeeper, given a superb characterisation by Jane Sykes.

As the children, Flora and Miles, Rachel Hawkins and William Grantham Hill prove themselves to be fine little actors, and both have superb diction.

And the icing on the cake is that costumes, lighting and sound effects are first class.

Linda Kirkman

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