EastEnders star brings Sleuth to Eastbourne

And if you are looking for a contemporary context, then think The Traitors, says Neil McDermott (EastEnders, The Royal) who leads the cast with Todd Boyce (Coronation Street’s Stephen Reid). In the piece, a young man arrives at the impressive home of a famous mystery writer only to be unwittingly drawn into a tangled web of intrigue and gamesmanship where nothing is quite as it seems...

“I don't want to give too much away,” says Neil. “This is a play that is full of surprises and certainly for the bulk of the show it's a two-hander. It's a Tony award-winning play that was written in 1970. It was in the West End and Broadway for 12 years and you don't become a Tony award-winning play without being really good writing. It's a thriller. It's a mystery. It's a study of human conflict and jealousy and manipulation and I think if you want to think about now, then maybe it's got a touch of The Traitors about it. You can't update the play but you can think about it in the 2024 context and I do think there is an element of that.”

Neil takes the role of Milo Tindle: “He comes to this big country house and an old man in the house has invited Milo that I play to have a chat about the fact that Milo is having an affair with his wife. So it's quite an odd situation. They are going to have a discussion about how this man is divorcing his wife and my character is marrying her. But you start to realise that there are all sorts of ulterior motives and strange things start occurring.”

In rehearsals the focus was on bringing out the thriller aspects of the play: “And I think you've just got to have a really good script which we have got. And you also want to be able to surprise your audience, and I think the point is that you have to surprise them for real. It's no good pretending to surprise them and them just going along with you. You have to have really, really good twists and turns in the story.”

Neil is playing the part which was played by Michael Caine in the celebrated film: “But I didn’t watch the film. I could have watched the film as part of research but I wanted to come to it fresh so that I wasn't trying to do an impression of Michael Caine. I did see the modern version which had Jude Law in it – just because I happened to see it. But again I don't want to be doing an impression of him, and I think what is interesting is that our director (Rachel Kavanaugh) has really wanted to bring out the Italian heritage in Milo. Rachel is amazing to work with. I worked with Rachel before on The Wind In The Willows. I did chief weasel for it so I'm used to working with her but she is just so bright. There is nothing that she does not know about the script. Any questions, she has got the answers and she gives her actors real freedom to explore and that gives you confidence in what you are doing. I just feel she thinks I'm a good actor and we all need a little bit of encouragement now and again, don't we!”