Brighton Year-Round 2026

Double Indemnity

Trafalgar Theatre Productions

Genre: Adaptation, American Theater, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, New Writing, Theatre

Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money – and a woman … Pretty, isn’t it?”  Not a whodunnit, not even a whydunnit, it’s a white-knuckle will-they. In 1944 Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler took James M. Cain’s 1936 novella Double Indemnity by its scruff and altered it. “I wish I’d thought of that ending” said Cain admiringly, who worked for another studio and couldn’t be asked. The film, an all-time classic is to Chandler’s and Wilder’s credit, the first great film noir. Tom Holloway’s version twists that version further: the ending is neither Cain’s not quite Chandler’s. Starting at Eastbourne in January, this Double Indemnity with Mischa Barton above the title arrives at Theatre Royal Brighton directed by Oscar Toeman till March 15, when it continues touring.

Cain had been inspired by the 1927 Ruth Snyder insurance murder scam; the very same murder that inspired Sophie Treadwell’s great play Machinal of 1928 which enjoyed two recent revivals. Here though instead of an expressionist classic Chandler injects a fast—talking twisty noir – with John Seitz’s expressionist cinematography. Indeed Holloway’s challenge is to convey each kink of plot in a play of two hours fifteen with interval. Some of it arrives in brilliant shafts, though the effect can sometimes be a little muffled. Jump-cuts chop logic; so parts don’t make sense.

The atmosphere though is superb. Joshua Gadsby’s lighting whether suffusing dim twilights or slatted through smoky offices (taken from Seitz’s original cinematography, soon to become standard noir), is outstanding and deserves an award. The slats suggest shades of the prison bars, and an overall greyish effect suffuses the staging. Not far behind it is Ti Green’s superbly bare set, a grey recessional that with panels opens up for the light through blinds or a grimy railway siding, or at one point a car speeding directly downstage. Spartan elements though mean there’s little for actors to show preoccupations with. When they do (a stepmother and daughter unravelling a ball of wool), it’s sometimes not quite credible. But the overall effect is slick, stylish and concentrated. Dan Balfour’s atmospheric sound design and composition riffs off Miklos Rosza’s original score, though is deployed insistently. Zac Gvi’s credited with additional composition so it seems a deliberate film-music aesthetic.

Clever insurance salesman Walter Neff meets bored siren housewife Phyllis Nirdlinger, and their chemistry is both immediate and catastrophic. Or is it? Walter comes up with the perfect insurance scam murder Phyllis dreams of, and slowly they put it into action, their prey being Oliver Ryan’s sharp-talking but unsuspecting Mr Nirdlinger (who also doubles as investigator Jack Christholf and witness Jackson).

Barton, famed for her screen roles, makes her UK stage debut as Phyllis. She and Ciaran Owens’ Walter slowly relax into edgy chemistry. Barton’s smoky mezzo voice opens into fathomless invitation, and snaps shut. She’s even more fatale than femme here, with a post-modern brittleness that Barbara Stanwyck’s original slinky siren doesn’t own. Owens’ rumpled conscience of Walter reacts to Barton so sardonically you wonder at his decisions. But his Walter’s guilt flinches most when up against his senior Kerr. And most troubled, and tender, with Sophia Roberts’ appealing Lola, Nirdlinger’s daughter by his first wife. And there’s a tale.

Roberts cuts through with an ardent sincerity and a smouldering sense of wrong, but also her attraction to Walter, stymied in her case by loving Nino (Joseph Langdon) even more. Langdon’s Nino is hangdog and increasingly dodgy. His Mr Norton, overall boss of a company he inherits from his father, is every inch the Ivy League brat who benefits from birth not merit. He’s also duped watchman Joe Pete.

Better is the second half, where consequence catches up and Martin Marquez’s superb Kerr dominates. Indeed Marquez, senior insurance man and Walter’s mentor, who smells something’s off, is the star of the show; and holds everyone with his growling hard-boiled but more than compassionate Kerr. The original Edward G Robinson role is filled here with something more regretful and humane too. Kerr not only discounts his boss Norton’s suicide theory, but suspects two people: one he’s convinced is Phyllis.  “It’s beginning to come apart at the seams already. Murder’s never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later, and when two people are involved it’s usually sooner.” As Keyes sharpens, desperate and disparate solutions follow each other pursued by furies.

Gillian Saker as Nettie, Walter’s secretary, is another luminous presence, flickering across the set, always pressed beyond her call of duty yet delivers. Walter finds himself praising her spontaneously. And you think he certainly made the wrong choice as Saker gleams with quick-witted efficiency and care. It’s strange too that three of the cast double so much when three understudies – Estelle Cousins, Simon Victor and Patrick Fleming – are onstage as extras on a few occasions and drastically underused.

There’s points where cast-members aren’t entirely audible, muffled too by the insistent sound, which will certainly improve as the production adjusts to the theatre. That and jump-cuts to logic in this version of the script, render serious gaps in comprehension just now. Rationale clacks over the tracks and occasionally derails. Some commercial adaptations from the screen just flop dead as a salmon in a fishmonger’s basket. This Double Indemnity still gasps for silver air. Holloway adds a feminist twist and a different ending, not bound by the Hayes Code and granting a greater theatricality. It all ought to work more smoothly, and will do in the week. And though best when silver and not grey, with Chandler’s ghost still in the machine it’s a compelling noir.

Movement Director Chi-Sa Howard, WHAM Designer JJ Wigs, Casting Director Serena Hill, Associate Director Sam Hardie, Fight & Intimacy Director Enric Ortuno, Voice and Dialect Coach Aundrea Fudge, Costumer Supervisor Melanie Boyce, Caroline Hannam, Props Supervisor Becks Chan, Production Manager Tim Stanley.

Published March 11, 2026March 11, 2026 by Simon Jenner