Gabriel

Tensions run high in this wartime mystery set in Nazi-occupied Guernsey, starring Paul McGann

Beautiful Widow Jeanne (Lang) will do whatever it takes to keep her adolescent daughter Estelle and Jewish daughter-in-law Lily safe on Guernsey in 1943. In order to survive, she trades on the black market and tolerates the romantic advances of the terrifying Commander von Pfunz (McGann).

Tensions heighten when a mysterious young man is washed ashore naked and is rescued by the women. After he regains consciousness it becomes apparent that he has no memory of who he is. The women are astonished to discover that this man, who reminds them so strongly of their loved ones at war, is fluent in both German and English. But who is he? An RAF pilot, a missing SS interrogator or local bank clerk and translator? Is he even a saviour sent from heaven? Harbouring the enemy is punishable by death and the stakes rise as the mystery deepens.

Previous stage works by Moira Buffini include Handbagged and wonder.land; Buffini also wrote the screenplay for Tamara Drewe and shared writing credits on new release The Viceroy’s House, which stars Hugh Bonneville.

Gabriel premiered in London in 1997, with Time Out calling it “a powerful English drama”. The New York Times hailed it as “a tense tale of wartime intrigue and romance [which] makes for riveting watching” when staged in New York in 2010.