Suspicions of Mr Whicher

Summer 1860, an elegant country house, a young boy is found dead in an outside privy. All clues point towards the murderer being a member of the grieving household. But which one?Called to the scene is the most celebrated detective of his day, Jonathan Whicher from Scotland Yard. Faced with an inept local police force, a middle-class family ravaged by secrets, and a lack of evidence, will he be able to solve the case?This original Victorian whodunit becomes a battle of wits between the professional detective and the only one who knows what really happened. In this fresh re-telling, fact and fiction bleed into each other, and the Truth becomes something to be fought over.Alexandra Wood's stage adaptation of Kate Summerscale's vivid and gripping bestselling non-fiction thriller, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, is premiered at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury, in May 2023.

Kate Summerscale is an English writer and journalist. Her books include The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008), which won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. Alexandra Wood is a UK playwright whose plays include: an adaptation of Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (Watermill Theatre, 2023); The Tyler Sisters (Hampstead Theatre, 2019); The Human Ear (Paines Plough, 2015); Ages (Old Vic New Voices); an English version of Manfred Karge's Man to Man (Wales Millennium Centre); Merit (Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2015); The Initiate (Paines Plough, 2014; winner of Scotsman Fringe First); an adaptation of Jung Chang's Wild Swans (ART/Young Vic); The Empty Quarter (Hampstead Theatre, 2013); The Centre (Islington Community Theatre); Decade (co-writer, Headlong); Unbroken (Gate Theatre, London, 2009); The Lion's Mouth (Royal Court Rough Cuts); The Eleventh Capital (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2007) and the radio play Twelve Years (BBC Radio 4).She is a winner of the George Devine Award (for The Eleventh Capital) and was the Big Room Playwright-in-residence at Paines Plough in 2013.