Hot on the heels of last Friday`s season opener, Engaged,  Pitlochry Festival Theatre (PFT) is delighted to present the first professional revival for many years of Edward Percy's
The Shop at Sly Corner, possibly the greatest British thriller of the 1940s.

"Whether it's Conan Doyle or Dashiell Hammett or P.D James, Ian Rankin - or, indeed, Edward Percy - the crime thriller arouses in most of us an instinctive curiosity about how and why something was done..." said new artistic director John Durnin.

At the head of a strong cast, which includes PFT regulars Janet
Michael, Guy Fearon and Helen Logan, audience favourite Martyn James returns to Pitlochry to play Descius Heiss, an Alsatian émigré who runs a curio shop in London.

Dedicated to achieving the best for his musically gifted daughter
Margaret, he has brought her up to be the perfect young Englishwoman.

Descius's outward respectability, however, hides a decidedly shady past, which he has kept carefully concealed from his beloved daughter. When Archie Fellowes, his ambitious and unscrupulous shop assistant, stumbles upon the old man's secrets, he quickly threatens to reveal all.

But Archie is to discover that he has underestimated his employer. Descius Heiss is a very singular man.  And he will do anything - absolutely anything - to protect his daughter from the truth . . .

"The Shop At Sly Corner is one of those marvellous "lost" plays from the 1940s which we've forgotten all about - and this one, in particular, is well overdue for a revival, given its contemporary resonances and terrific storytelling.  Not so much a "whodunit" as a "shouldhegetawaywithit", it's both a great thriller and a beautifully judged study of crime and consequence."  said Durnin.

For the PFT 2004 programme click here.

To read the Arts Journal feature on Pitlochry Festival Theatre click here.