STEPHEN LEWIS talks to Hull playwright John Godber, who has taken a dark turning for his 40th play

JOHN GODBER admits he's made something of a departure with his 40th play. As in many of his previous works, there is a strong vein of comedy running through Screaming Blue Murder. But there is a healthy dose of chills, thrills and terror, too.

It is the first time he has tried his hand at writing a thriller, even a darkly comic one. And while it's early days, yet (the play has not so far been seen by a paying audience, getting its world premiere at Hull Truck next Thursday), he's quietly confident.

"People have read it and have said it is full of foreboding and dread," he says.

So why did he turn to the thriller genre for his 40th play? He's been doing comedy for 20 years, he explains. "And after a time, you want to raise the bar. I've done a musical, I've done kids plays, I've adapted classics. I just wanted to exercise a different muscle."

The result is a play that promises a heady cocktail of murder, mystery, ghosts and guilt, and in which no-one is quite what they seem.

When Nick and Gill check into haunted Bagley Hall for a murder mystery weekend, they're expecting the perfect romantic interlude. "But the couple are not who we think they are," says John. "They are not married, and they have signed in under assumed names."

Things quickly start to go wrong. For a start, the hotel's staff are not that well trained - think the darker side of Fawlty Towers, says John - and are all feeling a little frazzled from the strain of dealing with a murder mystery weekend, a wedding, and a black tie party all at the same time.

It soon turns out the hotel is a former asylum which, in the 1880s, was home to 'hysterical women'.

"And there are hysterical women's bodies dumped behind the wall of the room they are staying in," says John.

Naturally, one of the characters turns out to have the gift of ESP, or extra sensory perception. Cue odd noises, piercing screams, and at least one genuine murder.

There is an element of cruelty running through the play, John admits, alongside the humour - but he says it is important the audience are able to feel some sympathy with the main characters. As the plot twists and turns, that sympathy switches. "You think, 'I don't like him', then 'I don't like her', then 'I don't like him' again," John says. "But there has to be some sympathy with the characters, otherwise it becomes little more than a chess game, where you are trying to work out who is who."

The humour is actually a vital part of the play which, far from diminishing the tension, actually helps to heighten it, John insists. "People say humour is the flip side of fear," he says. "Are we really denying fear when we laugh? So it is actually quite funny - which I think helps with the tension. You've got to have a release - a lightness which releases the tension."

Unlike a comedy, however, where the sign that it works is an audience rocked with laughter, the sign of a good thriller, John says, is how quiet the audience is.

Screaming Blue Murder previews at the Hull Truck for three nights only, from August 28-30, before going on tour. It then returns to Hull for an autumn run from November 17 to December 6. John will be hoping for plenty of quiet audiences.

Screaming Blue Murder, Hull Truck Theatre, Thursday, Friday and Saturday August 28, 29 and 30 at 8pm, before going on tour. Tickets, priced £8.95 (£7.50 concessions) for Thursday, £10.95 (no concessions) Friday and £11.95 (no concessions) Saturday from 01482 323638. The play returns to Hull on November 17 for a further run.

Updated: 09:47 Friday, August 22, 2003