To be called 'the most prolific writer in Yorkshire's history' is an honour indeed, especially when it can be proved. Joseph Smith (but always plain J.S.) Fletcher had 230 books published and a lot of them were extremely popular and remain well thought-of. His hundred-plus detective novels were among the foremost in what today's crime-writers call the genre's 'Golden Age.'
What was his secret? Well, take this for a title and plot. In The Lighthouse on Shivering Sands, three men are confined within their slender, sea-girt tower and two of them are sworn enemies and... But I have no intention of spoiling North Country Theatre's latest ripping yarn.
The lively bunch of players and back-stage staff from Richmond (the real Richmond, in north Yorkshire) have a reputation for unearthing great plots, or in the absence of any to hand, of writing them themselves. The company's director Nobby Dimon says he found The Lighthouse in a book called A Hundred Great Horror Stories. As he turned the pages, he became absorbed:
With talk of murder, madness and revenge, how long will it be before one of them will carry out his threat? Will the light remain lit? And is that really a seal basking on a nearby rock or... Could it be a mermaid?
Dimon adds more about the fervid imagination of Fletcher who was a journalist (Oh, Heavens) born in Halifax, son of a clergyman:
How can you resist characters called Pharaoh Nanjulian, Jezreel Cornish and Mordechai Chiddock, and the idea of the three of them thrown together in a lighthouse.
As their stories unfold you begin to wonder which of the keepers, if any, is telling the truth.
The Lighthouse on Shivering Sands features actors who are regulars with North Country Theatre: Chiddock is played by Mark Cronfield, who was Paul in last year's Rocking Horse Winner. Simon Kirk, who was the uncle in Rocking Horse is Jezreel Cornish and Dimon plays Graburn, the principal keeper who has to try to keep the light lit and the other two apart.
Fletcher, whose mountains of journalism were published under the byline 'Son of the Soil', knew the importance of female characters in popular literature and The Lighthouse finds room for them. In one of those delightful notes familiar in the programmes of small theatre companies, North Country says:
Vivienne Garnett who made her professional debut in our 2005 production of The Imitation Game has recently returned from Australia and will be all the women.
Fletcher was not a typical 'Golden Age' writer. Although he produced series such as The Adventures of Archer Dawe (Sleuth-hound), he was better at financial crime and plausible rogues. There is no doubt about his J/K.Rowling-like success at the time. Even the austere US president Woodrow Wilson was prepared to say how much he had enjoyed Murder in the Middle Temple.
The Lighthouse on Shivering Sands is at the Georgian Theatre in Richmond on 2 and 3 October then tours the region until 8th December. More details and a full schedule are online here or you can ring 01748 825288. The army town of Colburn next to Catterick Garrison is new to the tour route this year after its town council agreed to be an 'Angel of the North Country' and book the drama in.
