YESTERDAY morning, BBC Radio 4 broadcast A Portrait In Black, The Life Of Patrick Hamilton, in which biographer Nigel Jones celebrated the centenary of the troubled writer's birth and his gift for capturing English low life.

What unexpectedly perfect timing for the opening night of Rowntree Players' revival of Hamilton's best-known play, Gaslight. This spooked thriller is every inch a Victorian melodrama, although he wrote it in 1938.

Hamilton mostly wrote of boarding houses, dance halls and fleapit cinemas, but Gaslight takes him into the domestic setting of the 19th century living room, where Pimlico home life has left Mrs Manningham (Ruth Batty) feeling low and worthless, deflated as a tired old balloon.

Her husband, the bullying and grave Mr Manningham (Roy Powell), is conducting a cruel regime, designed to make her believe she is descending into the madness that had afflicted her mother. He hides her watch; he belittles her in front of the staff, reducing her to tears before the stalwart housekeeper Elizabeth (Eileen Wood) and the saucy young maid, Nancy (the exotically-named Townsend Winstanley).

Mr Manningham has a habit of leaving the house each evening, returning in the dark of night. He is a restless soul, a restlessness that is to be explained by Rough (Graham Smith), a dogged police inspector in the Frost mould, who is still on the trail of an unsolved case, 20 years after the murder of a wealthy old woman.

Rough takes advantage of one of Manningham's nocturnal wanderings to introduce himself to the emotionally fragile Mrs Manningham. He tells her how he is seeking to bring the murderer to justice and track down the precious Barlow Rubies, an heirloom worth even more even more than the splendid Victorian tea set that gave a shining performance after featuring in The Diary column of the Evening Press last night.

Alas, Graham Smith was not so polished, having one of those nights where he lost an early line and with it his confidence, although his characterisation and stage movement were as well judged as ever. Nevertheless, prompt Doris Yorke was called upon so often that she became trigger happy, adding extra tension when anyone dared to pause, and in Graham's most unfortunate moment, he dried up on the word "Quick". "....Thinking", prompted Doris.

This was a Rough night for Graham, but he will recover and join the rest of Frank Higgins's sterling cast in making Gaslight a truly creepy night. Ruth Batty was suitably heart-breaking, Roy Powell made you want to confront him there and then, and Townsend Winstanley had you wishing she had played the Martine McCutcheon role in Love Actually.

Gaslight, Rowntree Players, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until tomorrow. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 10:54 Friday, March 05, 2004