Sarah Punshon is to return to Newcastle-under-Lyme’s New Vic to direct Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 psychological thriller Gaslight.
Punshon, who has directed for BBC TV’s EastEnders and the Channel 4 drama Shameless, previously directed The Glass Menagerie, And A Nightingale Sang and Be My Baby at the New Vic.
She said, “It's great to be back at the New Vic, working with the brilliant teams here.
“I love the New Vic audiences and I think they're going to love Gaslight—it's such a great thriller, it hooks you in and keeps you gripped.”
The play features Bella Manningham, who is slowly losing her mind. Her gloomy home has become a prison.
Each night she sits alone, dreading the sound of footsteps from locked and empty rooms, waiting for the gaslight to dim.
Late one evening a stranger arrives. Can he be trusted or is she truly going mad?
Gaslight quickly became a West End phenomenon, with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth insisting on seeing it.
After a six-month run, the play, renamed Angel Street, took Broadway by storm and was twice adapted into a film.
The acting company comprises Alix Dunmore (London Wall, Finborough Theatre, London); Brendan Hughes (A New World, As You Like It, The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare’s Globe; Misery, New Vic); John Cording (Da Vinci’s Demons, BBC); Joanna Bacon (Spring Storm, Beyond the Horizon, National Theatre); and Hannah Lee (Pride and Prejudice, Chapterhouse Theatre Company).
Gaslight runs at the New Vic from Friday (20 September) until Saturday 5 October.