The Sacred Flame

Synopsis

Written in the 1920s. World War One hero Maurice Tabret is disabled after a flying accident, tended lovingly by his mother, his beautiful wife Stella, and the devoted Nurse Wayland. When he dies from an overdose during the night, and it is revealed that Stella is in love with Maurice's brother Colin and is expecting a baby, questions begin to be raised as to whether it was murder or suicide.

Our Review:

David Jobson - 12 November 2012

The Sacred Flame by Somerset Maughan may be unfamiliar to a younger audience.

Director Matthew Dunster has decided to strip away ‘the chintz and the chaises-lougues’ of that era to bring it afresh to the stage. By the end one can see why he wanted to revive this forgotten play.

The play is a take on the whodunit genre, where the mystery is solved by the potential suspects. After the infirm Maurice Tabert Jamie de Courcey suddenly dies, suspicions arise amongst the family members that he had been murdered.

Within a white, sterile, art deco house, the play discusses the consequences that would follow a murder investigation. Even the innocent are dragged in to the point where the revelations are brought together in an emotionally overwhelming climax. However at times so many themes run through the play that one starts to wonder what point is actually being made.

The cast on the whole are very good. Although his part is necessarily cut short [Jamie de Courc...

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