25 – 30 April

Based on the family-favourite board game via an American film and subsequent stage play, followed later by a UK television game show, this latest amuse-bouche for the national taste in country-house murder mysteries promises an evening of sleuthing for the sharp witted. Sadly for me, blinded by a blizzard of clues, it left me feeling clueless.

To be fair the show does not take itself seriously and the talented cast have fun with the opportunity to caricature the famous cast of characters. And in a similar vein the director, Mark Bell, adds frying pan to the list of possible weapons as the audience is beaten over the head with a bewildering battery of clues. As I wrestled with plot line after plot line I was reminded of the proliferation of television cookery shows in which tyro cooks, in an attempt to show originality, occasionally try to ‘deconstruct’ a culinary classic only to end up with a plateful of bits that don’t quite warrant the term, ‘dish’.

Mr Bell sets the tone of the play with some, ‘dark and stormy night’, thunder and lightning to introduce the characters who have been invited to Boddy Manor by a mysterious host, ostensibly to solve a case of corruption at the heart of government in Westminster. Each of the characters, we are told, could have been complicit in what was, in 1949 when the play is set, a national scandal. Mr Bell keeps the action moving with help from David Farley’s articulated set, which allows all the mechanics of bodies in cupboards and secret passages to add to the thickening plot. A nod to cinematic effects is evident during some scene-changes which are done by the cast in something like a swirling slow-motion ballet. Then again some unlikely tableaux hint at the kind of contortions we might expect in cartoons. Farce and melodrama add to the gallimaufry of styles.

Linking the characters as a kind of master of ceremonies is Wadsworth the butler, played by Jean-Luke Worrell, a physically articulate actor whose summing up in classic murder mystery style was one of the high spots of the show. Michelle Collins is a suitably high-class madam as Miss Scarlett whilst Daniel Casey’s Professor Plumb is a comically disreputable roué.

Any would be sleuths expecting to have their little grey cells exercised will find a lack of grist for their intellectual mill. Devotees of the game however will enjoy seeing the characters come to life in this first British stage rendering of the whodunnit which has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek.

★★★☆☆  Graham Wyles  26th April

Photo credit: Craig Sugden