LONDON-based director, Samuel Clemens is talking to me from his mother's Bedfordshire home.

A place that is entirely appropriate for our conversation because it's where his late father, the television producer and screenwriter Brian Clemens, had the idea for Strictly Murder.

The play is one of many Brian wrote alongside his television career which included such iconic series as The Avengers, The Professionals, The Persuaders, Thriller and Bergerac.

Directed by Samuel, it's currently on a tour of the UK and arrives at the Mercury next week.

"I did quite a few of dad's plays as an actor," Samuel says, "but this has always been one of my favourites.

"Back in 2008-2009, I was very fortunate to work as an actor with the Colin McIntyre Thriller Season at the Nottingham Theatre Royal," he continues. "It was a proper rep company where you rehearsed one play during the day and then performed another in the evening and as part of the season we once did Strictly Murder.

"Often it's played for laughs and is a little bit cheesy but after a bit of a research and finding the true back stories dad had used for the plot, I wanted to try and give it a faithful representation."

Strictly Murder is set in French Provence in April 1939, where English couple, Peter and Suzy, are living in idyllic isolation, far, it seems, from the rumblings of the oncoming war.

Their peace is suddenly shattered by a stranger from Peter’s past, who unearths secrets from a buried and hidden life, throwing Suzy’s world into turmoil. In a world where the Third Reich is emerging as a dangerous regime, deceit, lies and subterfuge make for a fast paced thriller with more twists and turns than an Alpine pass.

Samuel has put together a terrific cast for the production with plenty of local connections including Emmerdale actor Gary Turner, who currently lives in Colchester, and Mercury favourite Brian Capron, who was in the theatre's own production of The Smallest Show on Earth back in 2015.

Making-up the rest of the team are Corrinne Wicks, Lara Lemon and Andrew Fettes.

"When we were starting out I brought them all to the house," he adds, "because that's where dad wrote it. Reading the script you can see it's all here, the inspiration of his surroundings just turned into a farmhouse in Provence."

The home also has fond memories for Sam.

"They shot an episode of The Avengers here, Noon Doomsday," he says, "and then my father did Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter here as well.

"I suppose growing up in an environment such as this is, it's impossible not to be romanticised by the industry. Funnily enough not many actors came to the house, it was usually directors and stuntmen. We're still fairly close with Joanna Lumley, who was a regular visitor, and we were delighted when she got her recent BAFTA award. Dad would have been pleased by that.

"My brother and I did go on set a few times when we were very young and I remember that being pretty exciting so it was kind of inevitable that I would do something in the industry."

Training as an actor, rather than a director, Samuel went to the Drama Centre for three years and 'that's where it all began'.

After working for The Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC, and English Touring Theatre, he set up a company with his video editor brother, George. The pair have now worked closely together for many years and on a number of projects inspired by their father.

"We continue to make films together," Samuel adds. "In the past we shot a short nasty little horror film, which was an idea of dad's. That won us some awards. Currently we're working on another horror dad and I were writing and then there's the plan to turn Strictly Murder into a film.

"I've always thought it would make a good movie. Even with the stage production, having directed more films than theatre I went down that route. There are some sections where there is no dialogue at all so it lends itself to that kind of filmic approach. But it also works brilliantly on the stage. Every single scene ends with a twist which keeps you guessing right to the end.

"It's funny because dad always wanted to write a good whodunnit and this is kind of a bit like that.

"He was always good at writing incredible plots but he used to say I'm not really a whodunnit kind of person. He met Agatha Christie once at a writer's guild thing, I believe, and he thought she was marvellous. But dad didn't really get the chance to do his own whodunnit until he went to America and began writing for Perry Mason."

With his father's legendary reputation for being a prolific writer, I ask Samuel whether there might be any more Brian Clemens-inspired projects in the pipeline.

"There's so much material," he laughs, "and it's all here at the house. Draws of it. It would take someone ten years to go through all the stuff he did. He was so fast and never got precious about a project if it wasn't picked up. He would just move on to the next one. There's lots of films ready to go. Things that were optioned but never got made, so you never know."

Strictly Murder

Mercury Theatre,

Balkerne Gate, Colchester.

June 8 to 10. 7.30pm with an extra 2.30pm show on the Saturday.

£27 to £12 plus discounts. 01206 573948.

www.mercurytheatre.co.uk