You can’t fault the timing. Intentional or not, this production can’t help but benefit from the coat-tails ride provided by the recent release of the Netflix series, Ripley.

Joanna Murray-Smith’s two-hander zooms in on Ripley’s creator, the American novelist Patricia Highsmith. It’s the early 1990s, and Highsmith (Toni Scanlan), living in self-exile in Switzerland for a decade or more, has all but quit writing. She’s also been diagnosed with cancer.

Laurence Boxhall and Toni Scanlan in Switzerland. Photo © Brett Boardman

The play begins with an unwelcome visitor from New York, Edward Ridgeway (Laurence Boxhall), an emissary from Highsmith’s New York publisher.

He’s late for his appointment (bad start; Highsmith is a stickler), star-struck and nervous. Among other things, this author has a reputation as a gorgon. Edward’s predecessor, he tells her, is still in recovery after his encounter with Highsmith some months ago (which may have involved a hunting knife).

Ridgeway’s mission is to get Highsmith back on track and persuade her to pen one more Ripley novel. He knows and admires her work and will do whatever it takes – even if it means generating plot lines.

Switzerland is an appealing tussle...