Richard Harris’s psychological play Dead Guilty provides a mixture of guilt, obsession and revenge but suffers from being too drawn out and predictable.

Anna Brecon, from Emmerdale, is well cast as Julia Darrow, an attractive graphic artist whose leg was badly injured in a car crash that occurred when business associate John Haddrell suffered a fatal heart attack at the wheel.

We soon become aware that Julia is wracked with guilt because she was having an affair with John. But she takes a risk by letting his widow Margaret (Jenny Funnell) visit her regularly.

Things in her West London home start to disappear and someone is seen prowling upstairs at night. It can only be one of two people – Margaret or obsessive home help Gary (Ben Roddy).

Everything points to Margaret and the only thing the audience has to decide is whether Gary or counsellor Anne Bennett (Jo Castleton) will save Julia from being killed by either hatred or kindness.

The cast do a fine job, with Funnell projecting the widow’s manipulative and devious traits to show the right amount of menace. This – and an impressive set – helps director Patric Kearns to build suspense without the aid of any Hitchcock-style twists.