ADUR FESTIVAL- END OF STORY

Mass murderer Harold Shipman and his wife Primrose take to the stage in a new play at the Adur Festival.

In End Of Story award-winning writer Jennifer Pulling dissects the claustrophobic relationship of this odd couple brought face to face in a prison interview room.

The piece is Shoreham-based Jennifer's second on Shipman, and a third is on the way. She is hoping to stage the whole trilogy next year.

"The first part was done at the Arundel Festival about four years ago. The third part is after Shipman's death and is between Primrose and her daughter."

Jennifer, who also appears at Primrose, admits to being fascinated by the whole Shipman story.

"The motive has always intrigued me. The usual motives don't seem to apply. It is not sex. it is not money.

"I looked at his relationship with his mother. It appeared to be that he was shocked when she died of cancer in his teens and the morphine didn't seem to work. He felt that he had lost power over women."

The murders are his attempt to get that power back...

Fate brought Shipman and Primrose together on a double decker bus, Jennifer says.

"He recognised in this plain ordinary woman someone who would feed his ego. She couldn't believe her luck in falling almost literally into the lap of an up-and-coming young doctor.

"For years they lived an odd domestic life founded on his need for absolute control and her happy submission.

"Now Primrose visits him in prison. But while Fred - as Harold was known - cannot face the loss of supremacy over his destiny and confronts a bleak future, his wife has never awakened from her romantic dream based on the Mills and Boon stories she reads.

"Gradually the balance between them is challenged as Primrose makes an attempt to strike out..."

As their life together is unravelled and the ties that bind them revealed one tantalising question remains unanswered: How much did she know? And if she did know more than she admits, what monstrous kind of loyalty is it that protects a mass murderer'?

In her exploration of the last hours of a serial killer, Jennifer tries to show that nothing, not even life and death, can be wholly defined; even monsters are vulnerable.

As Harold Shipman actor and musician, Chris Andrews, brings a lifetime in the business to the role. He was the original Artful Dodger touring the States in the stage production of Oliver Twist. He is currently working on a musical score.

Jennifer says the Shoreham production is part of an aim to put Adur more securely on the map as far as drama is concerned.

"The Festival has grown over the years and is now a serious contender on the Sussex arts front. But up to now it has majored heavily in music and light entertainment. We hope to blaze a trail for a lot more drama."

Shoreham-based Jennifer is an established writer and journalist. Her features have appeared in most leading newspapers and magazines. She is the author of four books in including the bestseller Feasting And Fasting. Her short stories have won several awards. and her plays have been performed in all the major Sussex Arts Festivals from Brighton to Arundel.

* End Of Story plays at the Church of the Good Shepherd Hall, Shoreham Beach on Saturday June 2 at 8.30pm, Tuesday June 12 at 7.15 and Thursday June 14 at 7.15. Tickets 6/5 concessions telephone 01273 454867.