Norman Robbins – författare

Norman Robbins

Characters: 4 males, 6 females

Scenery: Interior

Months have passed since the ghastly events in Monument House occurred that are related in A Tomb with a View. Mortimer Crayle, the crusty lawyer, and his secretary have gathered the remaining members of the Tomb family at the house, ostensibly to inform this off beat bunch about their inheritance. In reality, Crayle has designs on the estate that necessitate eliminating all Tombs. Fog descends on the gloomy mansion. In the cobwebby corridors things and people are seldom what they seem. Poison is in every decanter and there are mysterious disappearances. Hosts and guests join the rising pile of bodies in the cellar. Previous acquaintance with the Tombs is not required to enjoy this glorious spoof.

Marion Bishop, an elderly writer of romantic novels, is dying. Katherine Willis, kind soul from the nearby village, looks after Marion in a most caring way while coping with her own mentally retarded brother of twenty. When Katherine takes leave to attend her cousin's wedding in Scotland. Laura and experienced nurse from London comes to take care of the failing writer, on the recommendation of the local doctor. A series of mysterious phone calls and the appearance of Raymond, Marion's rapacious nephew, set off a nightmare situation which becomes increasingly complicated when Katherine's brother is found murdered in a ditch.

4 women, 3 men

A Tomb With A View is set in as sinister an old library as one is likely to come across presided over by a portrait of a grim faced, mad eyed old man. There, a dusty, lawyer reads a will (involving some millions of pounds) to an equally sinister family one member of which has were wolf tendencies, another wanders around in a toga of Julius Caesar and a third member is a gentle old lady who plants more than seeds in her flower beds. By the third act, there are more corpses than live members left in the cast and what about the sympathetic nurse and the author of romantic novels are they all, or more than, they seem to be? All is revealed as the plot twists and turns to its surprising conclusion.