The West Yorkshire Playhouse’s touring production of Frederick Knott’s 1952 play Dial M for Murder comes drenched with warnings that it should be judged on its own stage merits: just forget about the classic Alfred Hitchcock film version made a couple of years later with Ray Milland and Grace Kelly.

This inevitably creates a huge problem: nigh on 100 per cent of the packed first night audience at the Playhouse will have seen the film and appreciated the dangerous suaveness of Milland and the exciting glamour of Kelly. Many, myself included, may not have known that this thriller was a stage play in the first place.

So break the item down further. Forget the film. Look at the fusty play. See how the whole plot is laid out before you. You know who’s going to try and have his wife murdered, because it’s all there in front of you, in the script, planned and devised before your very eyes. So in no way is Dial M For Murder a whodunit: it’s a “how d’you catch him for having dunit”.

Thus you can treat it like any other drama and not pussyfoot around the central plot line. Tony Wendice (Richard Lintern) wants to kill his lovely wife Sheila (Aislin McGuckin). He devises a plot involving an old school friend and some house keys, together with a specifically-timed telephone call, and expects the deed to be done. The wrong person is killed and Inspector Hubbard (Des McAleer) does the forensic business necessary to save Sheila from the gallows and catch the dastardly Tony by way of those keys.

So, having got the plot out of the way, let’s concentrate on the production. It is great to look at. Everything happens in one space: the drawing-room of the Wendice household, suffused in red, with wafting curtains, a central and vital door (remember the keys?) and a rather wonderful suggested staircase.

The set is on a revolve, which slightly baffled me. Every now and then, the drawing-room slips clockwise, which can only be to nod in the cinematic direction of ‘alternative camera angles’ (yes, we were meant to forget Hitchcock). This seemed unnecessary.

The acting is classy in classic, solid, touring form. McGuckin slips into her role excellently; Nick Fletcher as her love interest outside marriage and theatrical plot-driver works hard, as does the set-up murderer Captain Lesgate (Daniel Hill). I would cast McAleer in any TV police drama, and Richard Lintern justifiably holds centre stage with the most taxing role.

In old-fashioned school terms, Dial Beta Plus Query Plus.

Oxford Playhouse, until Saturday. Tel: