Because the safety curtain keeps jamming.

It happened on the last night of Equus and now it's happened again.

The 500 people in the audience of last Friday's Sleuth went home without finding whodunnit - if anyone did.

Like the audience for Equus they will get a refund.

Among them was Dean Hopcroft of Handsworth, his sister Ann and their mother Mona who were enjoying the play starring Simon MacCorkindale and Michael Praed.

"Once is unfortunate but twice in four weeks is unprofessional," says Dean, who went straight home to watch Doncaster Rovers on the TV.

For Equus star Simon Callow went in front of the curtain to explain - and charm - frustrated playgoers. This time, neither MacCorkindale or Praed wanted the job, which was left to house manager Janet Reaney.

Red-faced theatre bosses will have to cough up thousands in compensation after two mishaps.

But what went wrong?

"The second half had to be cancelled due to a mechanical problem with the safety curtain," says theatre spokesman Philip Strafford.

"A similar but unrelated problem occurred during last month's performance of Equus - a problem that appeared to have been rectified as the curtain had been working without fault for a number of weeks.

"Unforeseeably the mechanical fault had moved from one area of the curtain to another."

Experts have been called in to sort the problem out while chief executive Angela Galvin has written to apologise personally to frustrated theatre-goers.

The theatre declines to say how much it has lost in refunds but says: "An insurance claim will be investigated."

And it is still deciding what compensation to offer, if any, apart from refunds - particularly for those who suffered twice.

Meanwhile Mona is puzzled as to how the play ended. "We don't know what happened next."

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