Prolific novelist Hilary Bonner's first play Dead Lies is touring Chesterfield - starring Holby City and Hollyoaks actor Jeremy Edwards

Hilary was speaking about her first play, Dead Lies, which is on tour to Chesterfield's Pomegranate Theatre.

She said: "It's a traditional thriller about relationships and sex and indiscretion and mistakes, set against the backdrop of political intrigue and scandal in high places. Our hero makes political speeches and I will be updating the speeches throughout the run to reflect the things that are happening."

It's sheer coincidence that Holby City and Hollyoaks actor Jeremy Edwards plays the lead role of a politician called Peter George, given that Hilary was partly inspired in her writing by the case of Jeremy Thorpe.Hilary said: "The play is set in north Devon, where I come from, and Jeremy Thorpe was the MP for north Devon when he was discredited and stood trial for conspiracy to murder and he was acquitted. He was a very, very charismatic political leader and heralded as a bit of a Messiah. My Peter George is also a charismatic political leader who is a good man but there may or may not be something in his past which could cause him a lot of problems.

"This piece has twists and turns all along the way until the very last line - if you want to know any more, you'll have to go and see it!"

Hilary wrote Dead Lies 15 years ago after being commissioned by a West End producer. She said: "He loved it, we made progress and he had partly cast it and we had a theatre booked, then the leading man dropped out, one or two things happened and it never went ahead.

"Then by chance I met Lee Waddingham, who is the associate producer of Red Entertainment on a Covent Garden street corner, and he was telling me about his new company and he said I don't suppose you've ever written a play have you...I said funny you should say that and he took me into his office and that time it did work out; not without Covid getting in the way and leading to two delays.

"Since its reincarnation, because of Covid I spent an awful lot of time frightened that it wouldn't go on, now I'm afraid that it will go on!"How the play will be received by the critics is a lot less scary for Hilary. She said: "I've written 24 books so I am well used to critics. The worst thing of all if you are writing or in the public eye is to be ignored.

"I was very lucky that my first novel was so successful so I started with a bang. An awful lot of my books are inspired by real-life events. Some are personal and some are things that you read in newspapers."

One of her books, When The Dead Cry Out, was inspired by a neighbour when she lived in London who used to water her plants when she was away. Hilary said: "Some years later he was arrested and stood trial at Exeter Crown Court for the murder of his wife and two children. He was found guilty and is still in jail. It was a groundbreaking case because it was one of the first cases in the UK where someone was convicted of murder without any bodies because it was believed he'd dumped the bodies at sea. The fact that nobody had ever heard from them since was uniquely used as a key part of the prosecution case.”

Hilary said her toughest book to write was when she ghosted the autobiography of Coronation Street actress Amanda Barrie, who she married in 2014. "We were already together and I was so afraid of making a balls of it because it mattered so much,” she said.

She met Amanda when she interviewed her for the Daily Mirror during a 25-year career on Fleet Street.

Hilary’s impressive list of interviewees read like a Who’s Who of the film world. She said: "I've interviewed my fair share of legends - Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Jimmy Stewart, Clint Eastwood. I always had a soft spot for Roger Moore, such a funny man who always gave you a terrific interview and was always very clever at it.

"Close to home, Les Dawson, who I adored, became a close friend - I went to his wedding and sadly his funeral. Gorden Kaye from 'Allo 'Allo was a great friend too and I ghosted his autobiography.

"For me, it's a lot easier to be an interviewer, I'm a very amateur interviewee."

Dead Lies runs at the Pomegranate from May 10 to 12, 2022. For tickets, go to www.chesterfieldtheatres.co.uk