A TALE of tea but not much sympathy delighted audiences at the Playhouse Theatre last week.

Set on a tea-growing estate in India, Ray Cooney and John Chapman's My Giddy Aunt was billed as a comedy thriller, but it was more comic than thrilling - and all the better for it.

When the eccentric Lady Eppingham inherits the estate from her father, her nephews Jeremy and Martin hatch a plan to steal away her fortune and will resort to murder if they have to.

But the sudden appearance of Lady Eppingham's half-sister Beatrice upsets their scheming and sets the stage for a good-natured whodunnit.

The Schoolhouse Players, directed by Dean Taylor, kept the audiences on edge - but still laughing - right to the final act and easily maintained the Playhouse Theatre's reputation for excellent amateur productions.

On the opening that yielded neither a slip nor a stumble, the cast were faultless and direction spot-on.

Kate Haworth as the down-to-earth Beatrice - newly arrived in India from her haberdashery shop in Haslingden - was undoubtedly star of the show.

With all the wide-eyed innocence and Lancashire grit of a Victorian Wood character, she rattled through the play as if it was written for her, generating an energy that kept the comedy on the boil.

Well supported in particular by Allen Freeman and Tony Henry as Jeremy and Martin, and John Nickson as the frock-coated lawyer Basil Landau, Ms Haworth showed a gift for comic acting and a stage presence few would expect to find in such apparently humble surroundings.

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