Sutton Vane – författare

The climax of the first act of this extraordinary play provides the sort of thrill that comes no oftener than once in a theatrical season. A strange company of ship-mates, mystified by a vaguely oppressive feeling of unreality and uncertainty, suddenly discovers that every last one of them is dead. Their ship, unmanned and without lights, is gliding noiselessly across the River Styx, and when one of the characters in terror asks the sole attendant whether they are bound for Heaven or Hell, the answer is "Both!...It's the same place, you see!"

Seven passengers meet in the saloon bar of a ship as it sets sail from an unidentified English port. Socialite Mrs Cliveden-Banks is on her way to join her husband, a Colonel in the army; Mr Lingley has important businessin Marseilles; charlady Mrs Midget is making her first passage by sea; Reverend William Duke is looking forward to a holiday, while Tom Prior intends to spend the journey in the ship’s saloon bar. Also on board are Henry and Ann, a young couple who seem anxious for the ship to leave port. But the travellers have more incommon than they dare suspect. Out at sea, an eerie calm settles over the ship as Tom is the first to discover the fate which awaits his fellow passengers…Outward Bound was one of the biggest West End and Broadway hits of the 1920s and was twice filmed. Its production at the Finborough Theatre in 2012 marks its first London run in more than fifty years.