It may have been wet and windy outside last Friday evening, but inside Saundersfoot Bowling Club the scenery was palm trees, sea and sunshine for the production of ‘Death in Paradise’.

Expertly written and directed by Lynne Reyed, the setting of course was a Caribbean island where foul deeds were afoot with the bodies of Robert Stone and Scarlett Berry being discovered, having obviously been murdered by someone who knew they loved scuba diving and who had sabotaged their tanks leading to them being drowned.

Robert was the CEO of a large company on the island who, although married, was suspected to have been having several extra marital affairs, including one with Scarlett.

Sent hotfoot to investigate were local police detectives Inspector Lynda Morral, played by Shirley Cox and her two assistants Sergeant Luke Richards, played by Mike Ashbridge and officer Harry (fingers) Hope, played by Richard Whittaker.

In case you wondered where the nickname fingers came from it was because officer Hope was a bit inept and was constantly being told to pull his finger out!

Inspector Morral had soon narrowed down the list of suspects to six, all of whom in different ways had a motive to commit the murders and proceeded to interrogate them.

These were Peter Sandal (Allan Keating), Amanda Longstay (Kate Varallo) Karen Stone (Jean Dezille), William Stone (Mike Carr), Olivia Stone (Lynne Reyed) and Ralph Cooper (David Walters).

Afterwards each team in the audience of trainee detectives was asked to solve the crime by naming who they thought was guilty and why.

As it turned out, ‘trainees’ they were as not one person correctly identified the culprit and so a career in the police force was probably not for them!

In case you were wondering, the guilty party was Robert Stone’s wife Olivia whom he was about to divorce, even though she had devoted many years to their marriage and was the driving force of their company.

Scarlett, as one of his conquests, was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time when the air tanks had been tampered with.

Everyone involved in the production deserves credit to Lynne for making it all possible and to her and all the cast for the many hours they had spent rehearsing.

Jean Dezille, as in the previous production of Cinderella, had shown her talents painting all the scenery, several members had assisted with the staging and finally a big thank you to those who had attended, donated raffle prizes and not forgetting club treasurer Dai Davies who had the important role of barman!