Evening Standard (London), 8 April 1994
"When *Rope* Springs Eternal"
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KEITH BAXTER'S first encounter with Patrick Hamilton's 
classic thriller, *Rope*, arrived when he was still a tyro 
actor with his local amateur dramatic company in his native 
South Wales. 

He recalled: 'All I could see was this wonderful leading 
part with a lot of long speeches and I was desperate to play 
it. The production never happened because the local vicar 
denounced the play as wicked and immoral.' 

The play, which centres on two homosexual Oxford 
undergraduates who murder a fellow student, stayed in 
Baxter's memory until he was given the chance to direct it 
at Chichester's Minerva Theatre last year and that 
production now transfers, after a long tour, to Wyndham's 
Theatre on Monday, with Anthony Head - best known for his 
seductive Gold Blend coffee commercials - in the role his 
director was once so eager to play. 

Baxter said: 'The play is a thriller, but what interests me 
now is the erotic undertow. It is something that English 
writers do not often explore and that is what we have tried 
to examine.' 

However, the mystery remains why this fine actor, discovered 
by Orson Welles and once Maggie Smith's regular leading man, 
is not seen more often on the London stage. Since premiering 
Anthony Shaffer's Sleuth in the West End, he has had to 
journey to America or Canada to play Shakespeare and the 
classics. He says the answer is simple: 'I've not been 
asked.' 

He does, however, have a date for his London return when he 
brings another Chichester production - this time as actor - 
to Battersea's Bridge Lane Theatre when *Elvira 40* opens 
there later in the year.  

Caption: Baxter:mystery 



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