Local actors delivered one tense and well-executed scene after another during a three-night run of performances of the Harold Pinter play ’The Birthday Party’.

Local theatre group the Rushen Players performed the classic play, described as a ’comedy of dark menace’, at the Erin Arts Centre, Port Erin, last weekend, to large audiences.

The play starred a host of Rushen Players regulars, including Steve Blower in the lead role as Stan, a long-term guest at a boarding house run by Meg and Petey, played by Pauline Johnson and Brian Matthews.

They were joined by Sinead Venus, who played Lulu,who works at the guesthouse.

An attempt at throwing Stanley a party is disrupted by the arrival of the unsettling duo of Goldberg, played with a sense of cold, scheming wickedness by Juan Bridson, and McCann, who was portrayed with sinister menace and a real sense of nastiness by Jack Verity.

Both Steve and Sinead gave terrific performances as two people who find themselves on the wrong side of the two mysterious guests, with one scene in particular, where Lulu confronted Goldberg about an attack on her the previous evening, had the audience both squirming and laughing.

Jack Verity said that it was one of the most professional plays he had take part in.

’The audience reaction was unlike anything I have ever experienced,’ said Jack Verity.

’They hung on every word and move, and lived the experiences that the emotional script drew upon.

’This was not amateur dramatics, this production was almost professional.’

Director Adrienne Sanderson thanked the cast and crew for ’inhabiting Pinter’s characters with such energy and insight.’