Snake in the Grass

by Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Barry Baynton

"The set up is intriguing. A dilapidated tennis court. A reunion between two sisters – aggressive Annabel and mousy Miriam – brought together by their father's death. A sudden appearance is made by the father's blackmailing former nurse, Alice, who claims that Miriam murdered the obnoxious old man. All this is established by Ayckbourn with the deftness of a born dramatist. And, against the background sound of sinister twangs from the tennis court's wire netting, the tension between the sisters progressively emerges: the divorced, ex-alcoholic Annabel, newly returned from Australia, is tetchily at odds with stay-at-home Miriam, who has been kept under her father's thumb." The Guardian