THERE sometimes comes a moment when you are cooking a meal and you think, ‘I wonder what it would be like if I added...”

The sensible thing at this point of course, is to hold back and consider that the classic recipe you are following has been honed to perfection over many years and probably doesn’t need a splash of  gin, or a banana or whatever random ingredient has suddenly crossed your mind.

The same can be said for theatre - sometimes, less is more and throwing the kitchen sink at an idea just leaves an ugly dent in the wall.

Such was the case with Contemporancient Theatre’s Sanctuary - The Secrets of the Gunter Mansion which was staged at the Borough Theatre last week.

With a brilliant story to work with the company made the fatal error of throwing in more and more ingredients until it was almost impossible to tell what the original flavour was meant to be.

Despite some good performances from the small cast, Sanctuary was a play which never quite found its way, as it struggled to decide whether it was a history play, a social commentary, a ghost story, a Poundshop Under Milk Wood or a heartstring-tugging family drama.

No sooner had it headed down one path taking the audience with it than it changed course leaving those watching struggling to keep up.

Sadly for the Gunter Mansion its history, so significant for Abergavenny was barely touched upon as the play’s writer chose to concentrate on two characters, who were completely unassociated with the historic building, in an effort to create a link with the story of a Syrian refugee who found herself working on the restoration of the Mansion.

Add into the mix a bigoted Welshman - who portrayal was so caricatured that had he been from any other culture it would doubtless have been deemed racist - and a volunteer tour guide who spends her nights squatting in the Mansion’s loft because she can’t afford a house in Abergavenny and has ‘created’ one of the ghost priests in the image of her dead father, and a Greek-style chorus and you have the makings of a headache enducing night of theatre.

Sadly  for a story which was supposedly based around one of Abergavenny’s most historic buildings, it was mainly volunteer Carys’ gripes about house prices in the town and slightly confusing tone poem about the A465, which offered reminders to those watching that the action was actually set there.

There were moments when the potential of the piece shone through - Sara Masry’s soliloqies were moving and well done, drawing applause from the audience while Jemima Nicholas worked well and proved the old Abergavenny tradition that if you add a song to a drama the audience will love  you.

Equally Vic Mills and James Morgan as the refugee-seeking priests were oinvincing but with no real context it was hard to relax and enjoy the performances without struggling to understand what was going on.

The set design was minimal but effective with the blood red ribbons creating the feel of an ancient attic as the ‘builders’ crawled their way around it harking back to the tiny space in which the two priests sought refuge.

Sadly the positives could not outweigh the negatives and on the whole, this was a production which needed to go back to the drawing board and decide what exactly it was going to be and what direction it was going to take.

To quote Eric Morecambe - it had all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order and that does not make for a harmonious evening of theatre.