STAGE: SLEUTH, CORK & DUBLIN - 1973

Producing the hugely successful thriller Sleuth for the Irish stage was the idea of TP’s close friend, actor Donal Donnelly. He had been intimately involved with the piece having played opposite Anthony Quayle on both the London and Broadway stages.

The plot revolves around a charged evening in the country house of a very successful mystery writer, Andrew Wyke. He’s invited his wife’s lover, Milo Tindle, to the house for a civilized gentlemen’s chat.

The evening commences with convivial bonhemie, then progresses to some light games playing (the house is crammed with all manner of theatrical props and magic devices), but ultimately escalates into a sinister and pungent battle of one-up-manship in which, pyshcologically, tables are turned, roles are reversed and banter becomes barter as the audience realises they are watching a complex and deadly duel.

It’s an extremely clever piece of theatrical intrigue by Anthony Shaffer but productions of it live or die by the casting and performances of the two central characters. Although TP and Donal were very close age wise, 42 and 44 respectively at this time, TP’s playing age was some way above that. There was an important physical contrast also. Andrew Wyke is well suited in tweeds and somewhat plump in his success while Milo Tindle is decidedly younger and trimmer and, to Wyke’s disdain, fashionably attired in smart blazer and slacks.

Between TP and Donal there was exactly this dynamic and for three months in record breaking performances at the Opera House in Cork
and the Olympia Theatre in Dublin they played out this fiendish game.

The run was enormously successful and was cheered for the return, not just of two home grown talents, but of two established and highly talented actors playing at the top of their game.