It's every denizen of surburbia's worst nightmare -- their lives are invaded by a lower middle class trainspotter with a grudge and a lethal weapon.

And the three-strong cast of John Thompson, Carol Birch and Kelvin Hastings-Smith make the most of a N.J. Crisp thriller with more twists and turns than a game of snakes and ladders.

The play is set in the conservatory of the comfortable home of successful Mercedes coupe-driving businessman Mark Driscoll (Hastings-Smith) and wife Sally (Carol Birch).

But -- after the arrival of John Barrett (John Thompson) -- the comfort and success are exposed as the equivalent of lace curtains at the windows of a burnt-out shell of a home.

For Barrett is the marital equivalent of what was dubbed the capitalist bomb -- the neutron bomb which destroys people but leaves buildings untouched.

It is always hard to discuss a play like this without spoiling it for people who haven't seen it.

But it can safely be said that Barrett, a creepily self-effacing bore, is the worm that finally turned after his wife is involved a tragic car accident and he discovers evidence of an affair with Mark -- and becomes convinced that the bouncily self-confident Driscoll was responsible for the accident.

Ms Birch is perfect as the bored housewife with at least an embryonic drink problem -- but a field commission in the tactical war of precise English social divisions.

When Thompson -- nemesis in a brown suit and if it hadn't been a sunny day probably an anorak as well -- invades her home unannounced she has the automatic alarm of people with something to lose.

She can't remember meeting him and his wife at a convention in the shabby-genteel coastal resort of Torquay after a few drinks too many.

But she relaxes into the model hostess once his social credentials are established and she can bracket him somewhere.

The perfect pedantic precision of Barrett slips a bit when Mark -- blue blazer, loud tie and shiny black shoes -- arrives home and the stories behind what is apparently a discreet affair unfold.

Mr. Thompson is superb as he rips away the paper over the cracks in the ostensibly happy marriage.

And Mr. Hastings-Smith, with the flat vowels of the superficially self-made man and the deliberate cruising speed of the corporate shark, is exposed as a weak man tied to a wife who bankrolled him in business.

His disintegration into a near-child as the pressure builds and his smooth facade begins to crack and crumble is one of the best performances I've ever seen in Bermuda.

And Ms. Birch, the Shirley Valentine star who seems to be cornering the market in bored housewives, excels as the wife who deep down knows what her man is -- but still tries to comfort him as he breaks down and is prepared to go to almost any lengths to save his rather miserable life.

But the gold medal goes to Mr. Thompson, who even sips his G & T with the fussiness of a maiden aunt, as he single-mindedly creates havoc in the Driscoll home in a superbly consistent performance.

And he makes his round of the conservatory dropping the blinds one by one a masterpiece of metaphor and tension.

He even manages to break the mounting apprehension a little with the sometimes unintentional humour of the literal minded.

When challenged over whether it was right to bring along a Smith & Wesson revolver on a social call, he gets a hold of the wrong end of the stick and launches into a comparison between it and the merits of a Beretta automatic as an alternative.

During the play, Driscoll gets a glass shot out of his hand and a window gets blown away. But Bermudian theatre only gets a shot in the arm.

RAYMOND HAINEY THEATRE REVIEW REV