Blackmail review " play that brought Hitchcock a hit is retooled for today
Mercury theatre, ColchesterHandsomely staged, Mark Ravenhill's version of Charles Bennett's 1920s thriller includes pertinent concerns about policing and the abuse of power An artist is dead in his Chelsea studio, stabbed in the throat, blood everywhere. But this stage is no crime scene: the only red stuff is the strawberry jam that policeman Harold Webber spreads on his bread. That's because Mark Ravenhill has slice…