IT has been a pleasure this summer to see a succession of good old-fashioned thrillers playing to practically full houses at Boscombe’s wonderful Shelley Theatre.

Dead Guilty is the London Repertory Players’ fourth production in as many weeks, but the company shows no signs of flagging as the season heads towards its close.

At the start of the play, Julia (Victoria Porter) is recovering after a car accident, with the support of a counsellor and a visiting handyman.

The crash happened when Julia was travelling with a businessman who had a heart attack at the wheel. Against her better judgement, she agrees to meet the man’s widow, Margaret – a decision influenced by her guilt that her relationship with the driver was much closer than she has let on.

The irascible, conflicted mistress and the buttoned-up, humourless widow strike up a relationship. But Julia starts to suspect that someone in her support network does not really want to see her recover.

Richard Harris’s play is, for me, the weakest of the scripts these players have tackled. It’s lively enough, but the second act does not deliver the big surprises the audience might well be expecting. Yet it's still a very entertaining evening out, thanks to Vernon Thompson's lively production and some fine performances.

The widow Margaret is the star part, and Kirsty Cox makes the most of it. She is the only performer to have been in all four plays of this season, but here she is almost unrecognisable from previous weeks, exuding an unsettling starchiness that might very well conceal something sinister.

Dead Guilty runs until Tuesday, but the first night curtain call brought the welcome announcement that the London Repertory Players will be back, with another collection of plays committed to their impressive memories, in 2019.