One of fiction’s most appealing badhats — the killer conman Tom Ripley — exerts his remarkable ability to charm even as he horrifies in the gripping stage adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley at Northampton’s Royal Theatre. Well known in a number of film versions, the novel presents us with a charismatic psychopath who befriends a rich American contemporary in Italy, then takes his life as a prelude to stealing his identity and fortune.

The work of writer Phyllis Nagy, a pal of Highsmith’s during her last drink-sodden years, the play conveys far more of the book’s psychological insights and intriguing ambiguities than were offered in any of the movies, including Anthony Minghella’s 1999 production with Matt Damon and Jude Law.

Director Raz Shaw follows Minghella in supplying his audience with plenty of male eye-candy, with a cheeky chappy Italian gigolo in tight shorts (Giles Cooper) rivalling the two male protagonists in the quantity of rippling muscle exhibited. But the play goes further in introducing strong homosexual overtones to the relationship between the villain and his victim. This is clearly seen in Ripley’s waspish dislike of Richard Greenleaf’s girlfriend Marge (Michelle Ryan on top form) and her — entirely justified — suspicions of him.

Kyle Soller — a fine Gentleman Caller earlier this year in Shared Experience’s Glass Menagerie — proves even more impressive here as Ripley. Rarely, if ever, off the stage, he makes us at first partners in his mischief through his knowing glances towards the stalls as he poses as a tax official to trick cash out of a frightened commercial artist (Giles Cooper, again) at a taut meeting in a Hopperesque diner conjured by designer Hannah Clark. Later we shall come to regret this complicity as he stands revealed in his truer, darker colours.

Sam Heughan (above with Kyle Soller, rear) shows us both the sex appeal and the stupidity of Greenleaf, while the heir’s doting parents — buttoned-up shipowner father and fun-loving cancer-stricken mother — are well presented by Chris Ravenscroft and Miranda Foster. Ben Bishop completes a cast of top talent as his WASP schoolmate Freddie Miles, who pays the ultimate price for crossing Ripley.

Until October 9. 01604 624811 (www.royalandderngate.co.uk)