The Twist of a Knife

It goes without saying that there have been attempts to replicate the success of Sleuth, but apart from Ira Levin (Deathtrap), nobody has come close. When you think about it, there’s not a great deal you can do on the stage. Magic and illusion may have a part to play, but so much of theatre is words: people moving about a space, talking to each other. Shaffer broke the physical rules – just as his brother did with Black Comedy, a farce that takes place during a power cut, the stage lights coming on only when the blackout supposedly begins. The trouble is, once the rules have been broken, nobody will be excited when someone else does it a second time. If something is unique, it can’t be done twice.

Even so, it had become an obsession of mine to do exactly that: to write a play with a small cast and a series of twists and turns in the manner of a traditional murder mystery, but using the stage in an entirely new and surprising way. Whenever I found myself between books or TV scripts, I would scribble down ideas and over the years I had completed three plays before I came up with the idea for Mindgame. I had, incidentally, had limited success. One of my works, a one-act play called A Handbag, was performed as part of a local festival. The other two were never produced.

Mindgame itself would never have reached the stage but for my sister, Caroline, who at the time was running a small but successful theatrical agency, representing actors and actresses. She read it and liked it and, without telling me, showed it to a producer she knew called Ahmet Yurdakul. A few days later, he phoned me and asked me to come round for a chat.

I will never forget that meeting. Ahmet worked out of an office near Euston Station, so close to the railway lines that it vibrated every time a train went past, like something out of one of those old black-and-white comedies starring Sid James or Norman Wisdom. He offered me a cup of tea that tasted of engine oil and biscuits that danced on the plate. Ahmet was a small, neat man with jet-black hair. He spoke very quickly and bit his nails. There was a button missing on his suit jacket and throughout our discussion I couldn’t keep my eyes off the patch where it should have been, the three threads hanging down. He had an assistant, Maureen Bates, dressed in a cable-knit cardigan with silver hair and glasses on a chain around her neck. From the way she bustled around him, she could have been his aunt or perhaps an elderly bodyguard. She seemed to be endlessly doubtful and suspicious, taking notes in tiny handwriting, but she barely said a word to me. They were about the same age – in their fifties.

The office did not inspire confidence. Situated in the basement of a three-storey house, it had a window too dusty to see through and furniture that was ugly and mismatched. I remember casting my eye over the posters on the walls and wondering if I had found the right home for my masterpiece. Run for Your Wife, a farce by Ray Cooney that had opened in Norwich. It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, adapted from the long-running BBC sitcom at the Gaiety Theatre on the Isle of Man. Rolf Harris in Robin Hood at the Epsom Playhouse. Macbeth (Abridged) performed in the open air at Middleham Castle with a cast of six.

To be fair to him, Ahmet loved my play. When I came into the room, he rose up to embrace me, overwhelming me with the smell of aftershave and tobacco. As we sat down, I noticed the packet of American cigarettes and heavy onyx lighter on his desk.

‘This is a great play. A very great play!’ They were almost his first words to me. The typescript was in front of him and he emphasised his words by striking it with the back of his hand. He was wearing a heavy signet ring that left dints on the first page. ‘Do you not think so, Maureen?’

Maureen said nothing.

‘Ignore her! She doesn’t read. She doesn’t know. Anthony, let me tell you. We will take this play out on tour. Then we will come into town. I love your sister who brought this to me. I cry with happiness to meet you.’