Dare you look through Mrs Gerrish’s Rear Window?

MRS GERRISH’S Rear Window looks intriguing. It’s a thriller and a spoof of the famous Hitchcock film Rear Window; it includes true stories of brushes with the law and music from the era of World War II; and it’s touring West Dorset throughout October.

Will you see what they see? The Ministry of Entertainment's KateMcNab and Ross Harvey in Mrs Gerrish's Rear Window, touring Dorset in October 2010.

The show’s being put on by the Bristol-based Ministry of Entertainment, a small company set up to produce theatre based on oral histories from the era of the Second World War.

The plot

It’s being promoted by Artsreach, who summarise the plot thus:

Mrs Gerrish is somewhat incapacitated. Her guesthouse is closed for the winter and she can’t even wash the net curtains.

She will just have to relax, take it easy and take the opportunity to read all of those enticing crime novels Mrs Fricker left behind last season.

But something isn’t right! She has the eerie feeling that someone is watching her. Someone with evil on their minds.

With binoculars in hand she lays guard at her rear window awaiting the arrival of her only friend, Muriel. The downstairs front door opens. But Muriel is there, in her garden, digging a large hole…

So who could this be, creeping up the stairs?

Hitchcock’s Rear Window has been parodied and referenced ever since it came out in 1954. It should be interesting and amusing to see how The Ministry of Entertainment’s Kate McNab and Ross Harvey follow The Simpsons, Lady Gaga, and Brian de Palma, among others.