Review of Almost Legal Productions' Misery, at Lansdown Hall, by Mark Johnson.

STEPHEN King's name has been synonymous with the horror genre for nearly 40 years. His first published book was the epic Carrie (1974) followed by a succession that went from book to film.

In 1990, the much acclaimed novel Misery (1987) took to celluloid winning Kathy Bates (Annie Wilkes) an Oscar.

Almost Legal Productions always like to bring Stroud debut performances of things that aren't necessarily the run of the mill such as the Rocky Horror Experience and the first ever stage production of The Wicker Man it was no easy task taking the film Misery to stage.

Chas Burns made the adaptation as he had done with The Wicker Man last year.

On Friday and Saturday it proved every bit a success. They even had a live pig (real name Misery).

Bonnie Carter recently played Magenta in the Rocky Horror Experience prior to landing the main role in Misery.

"It was very satisfying playing Annie, it was challenging trying to identify with her crazy self but her mad outbursts of rage and evil moments provided a lot of opportunity to let off personal steam in rehearsals," she said.

Chas Burns, Olly Ford and Jax Bremnar played excellent supporting roles to Bonnie Carter's Annie Wilkes which certainly gave Kathy Bates a run for her money.

"It was more about how we were going to adapt the acting than the writing," said Chas.

"You watch the film nowadays and you can see how dated it has become."

This certainly wasn't the case for the ALP stage production.

Mark Johnson