Queensland Theatre’s 2024 season opener, Gaslight, also marks the Australian premiere of Patty Jamieson and Johnna Wright’s feminist adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 thriller, originally titled Gas Light and (on Broadway) Angel Street.

Directed by Queensland Theatre Artistic Director Lee Lewis, and touring nationally until September, this production features some absorbing performances, suspenseful moments and genuinely surprising twists and turns. In this version, rather than wait to be rescued, Bella who must save herself.

Kate Fitzpatrick and Geraldine Hakewill in Queensland Theatre’s Gaslight. Photo © Brett Boardman

Gaslight is set in 1901 London, in the rented home of Bella and Jack Manningham. It is not a happy marriage and since moving back to England, Bella has begun to wonder if she is losing her mind. To Jack’s chagrin, she constantly misplaces things with no memory of having moved them. When she is alone in the house at night she hears strange noises and sees the gas lights in the sitting-room mysteriously grow dim.

Though exasperated by her behaviour, Jack is patient, assuring Bella that it is all in her head. The audience, too, begins to wonder whether she is imagining things – or...