Category Archives: Thriller/Whodunnit

Murder Mistaken – April 2012

6/10

By Janet Green

Directed by Bruce James

Company: Bruce James Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Wednesday 4th April 2012

An old one, this, which we’d seen many years before. Steve remembered it, I didn’t, but there weren’t many twists to unravel in this psychological ‘thriller’. A man kills his much older wife for her money, only to find that he’s not as well off as he thought he would be. Another rich woman comes along – will she meet the same fate? Meanwhile another tempting female with money turns up, and we’re wondering who will do what to whom? With moments to spare, will the murderer be revealed in time, or will he succeed in getting the money he craves through another murder? Decent performances all round in this fairly average will-he-get-away-with-it (the last we’ll be seeing from this company, as it turns out).

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Communicating Doors – June 2011

7/10

By Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Thursday 9th June 2011

I do like an Ayckbourn, and this one is no exception. It’s an older play, first performed in 1994, and unless the author made some changes, it’s amazing how well it predicted life in 2011. Excellent performances all round, as usual, and the whole time-travel thriller concept was good fun to watch. I didn’t get many of the film references – Psycho was obvious, but I didn’t recognise any others – but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment one bit.

The action all took place in one room on the top floor of a posh hotel. There was a door on the far right to a cupboard, which also had a door into the room next to this one, which was only used for storage. When the characters entered this cupboard, either to hide or to go through to the next room, the lights went down, the cupboard space swivelled round and they emerged into a different time period. We started in 2031, a character called Poopay went back to 2011, and another character called Ruella went further back, to 1991. As a result of this complicated to-ing and fro-ing, lives were saved and one psychopath was killed, twice. The final scene showed us how these changes had affected Poopay’s life, and it was a nice happy ending to finish with.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

I Met A Man Who Wasn’t There – May 2011

6/10

By Philip Meeks

Directed by Bruce James

Company: Bruce James Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Friday 27th May 2007

This was a reasonably decent modern supernatural thriller, which didn’t scare me much, but did have some tension, and the unravelling of the story was well done. It was a two-hander with a cast instantly recognisable from the soaps – Cathy Shipton as Amanda Schilling and Brian Capron as Edgar Ryme, a supposed clairvoyant. She’s a journalist who claims to be doing an article on clairvoyants, and is willing to pay him for his time and information. They swap ghost stories and it’s clear she’s got something to hide, but then so does he, and then strange things begin to happen…….

The set was a small living/dining room in an upstairs flat. Window with permanently drawn curtains to the left, then the door to the kitchen, then an area I couldn’t see very well – hidden by the table – but it had the record player, then the dresser with various windmills and other knick-knacks. Centre back was the fireplace with a large mirror over; the fireplace was screened off with a board and there was a small electric fire in front of that. The door to the outside world was to the right of the fireplace, then a table and comfy chair. There was a sofa under the window, and the dining table with chairs was front and left.

We moved closer in the interval, as I wasn’t able to hear all the dialogue in our original seats. Sadly, the theatre was less than half-full, so we had no problem relocating. The title refers to the poem Antigonish by Hughes Mearns (I’m relying on Wikipedia here, so fingers crossed), which David keeps reciting as part of his strategy for taking over Edgar, and it did become a bit creepy after a while. The performances were fine, and although the writing was a little clunky at times, there were also several fine speeches, most notably Amanda’s description of her time in Bosnia. It may not be a masterpiece, but this deserves better audiences, and I hope they get them.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Black Veil – March 2011

Rating: 5/10

By: John Goodrum, based on a short story by Charles Dickens

Directed by: Bruce James

Venue: Connaught Theatre, Worthing

Date: Friday 4th March 2011

This production was by the same team that gave us The Signalman back in 2009. We both felt this wasn’t such a good adaptation; in particular, the opening scene was too long-winded, with the veiled lady going on at great length about her distress while not actually getting round to explaining her concerns. I admit to nodding off during this scene, but Steve brought me up to speed at the interval.

The set was a bit sparse, even for a touring production, and perhaps part of the problem was that the open nature of the acting space reduced the atmosphere. In any case, the second half worked better for us once the third character turned up and the plot began to unravel nicely.

The story was simple enough to begin with. A young doctor gets a visit late at night from an elderly, frail lady who is wearing  thick black veil. She has come to the doctor for help, but claims that he can’t actually do anything. Instead of turfing her out, he insists on getting involved, and agrees to come to her lodgings the next morning even though it will be too late, the man she wants him to help is already dead! From various clues, it sounds as though the man she’s talking about – her son – is due to be executed, but it’s never made clear (at least not while I was awake). We do find out that the young doctor, whose practice hasn’t got going yet, which is why he’s keen to accept any patient at all, was engaged to be married to a young woman, but called it off when he saw how she treated her bedridden mother. He had since become engaged to another lady, and was only waiting to establish his medical practice and earn a decent income before he can marry her, as he  has to obtain her brother’s approval.

The next day, he arrives very early at the hard-to-find address down by the docks. The woman brings him in, but doesn’t show him the ‘patient’ right away. There’s a short pause, and then she leads him up to the bedroom where a man lies on the bed. He appears to have been hung, and life is quite extinct. Then things take a turn for the worse, as a violent thug arrives, banging on the door demanding to be let in. The woman explained that this thug was responsible for her son’s death. The two men had become involved in some burglary, and during it a security guard was killed. Her son was caught and convicted of the murder, while the man who had actually done it got off scot free. This was the man who was banging on the door, although when he got in and confronted them both, he told a different story. His version had the son killing the guard, but his own actions suggested a homicidal streak which made it more likely he was the guilty party.

Then the story changes completely, as the doctor is told to look closely at the dead man, and asked if he recognises him. He doesn’t, but it’s not surprising, as he’s never met his fiancée’s brother. It turns out that the dead man is indeed the brother of the doctor’s fiancée, lured to London by a forged letter which appeared to be from the doctor, inviting the brother down to London to see for himself the doctor’s lovely lodgings, and killed just before the doctor himself entered the room. The trap has been set – the dead man, and the doctor’s arrival just before he died, will make it look as if the doctor killed him in order to marry his fiancée without needing the brother’s consent. The forged letter, in the doctor’s own handwriting, will clinch the deal. But who has set this trap?

Well, it takes a little while, but the thug reveals himself to be a man who deeply loved the previous fiancée whom the doctor jilted. Once rejected, the young lady apparently pined away, and this revenge was plotted by the lover and the young lady’s mother, the elderly lady in the veil. The mother then began to criticise the doctor, telling him that she’d been happy with the way her daughter treated her, and asking him what it was that she had said which had made the doctor break off the engagement. Well, it was all too unlikely for me, and it wasn’t long before the old lady was exposed as the young lady, and the similarity with Fatal Attraction became clear. Naturally, she’d killed off her mother, by leaving her food outside her door so she starved to death, but she’s still obsessed with knowing what her mother had said that affected the doctor so much he broke off the engagement. He assures her there wasn’t anything, just her treatment of her mother, but she’s well gone by now. There’s a mad chase outside the house, and then first the lover, then the deranged ex-fiancée end up in the river. Whew.

The final twists and turns were enjoyable enough, but the piece could do with some serious cutting to make it more tense. The performances were good enough, and I’d be happy to see future adaptations by this company.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Inside Job – June 2010

6/10

By Brian Clemens

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Wednesday 9th June 2010

A decent thriller this, even though both Steve and I had worked out what was happening before the end. It’s set in Spain, where a husband and wife each hire the same ex-pat criminal to kill the other, promising insurance money and/or diamonds to pay for it. There were a couple of explosions, a bloody corpse, and more twists and turns than a mountain road. The cast all did a respectable job, with Matt Healy having more tongue in his cheek than the others. What with slurping drinks, rattling ice, and crinkling ice cream wrappers, the audience were almost noisier than the action on stage during the opening scene of the second half, but on the whole it was enjoyable enough.

The play starts with the wife, Suzy, having lured ‘Larry’ to the villa with the promise of sex, offering a completely different proposition. She’s found out that ‘Larry’ is, in fact, ‘Dutch’ Holland, a criminal on the run from the British police. She wants to get away from her husband, and persuades Dutch to return later to rob the safe – it’s supposed to have £100,000 worth of diamonds in it – and split the proceeds with her.

He agrees, but when he tries to carry out the robbery, the husband, Alex, surprises him, and despite being apparently shot and killed, manages to recover and turn the tables on the robber. The bullets were blanks, of course, but now Alex reloads with the real thing, and carries out the sort of conversation with Dutch that only ever happens in thrillers. Finally, he comes out with his own proposition – Dutch will carry out another robbery, only this time, Alex will have a cast-iron alibi and Suzy will be killed instead. The life insurance of £300,000 is dangled to tempt Dutch, but in reality he will have the diamonds which are not yet in the safe, but which will be arriving in a few days, and which are also, coincidentally, worth £300,000.

They do some planning then, and also the next day, when Alex sends Suzy off on a wild goose chase to pick up some cigars so that he and Dutch can confer alone. However, Dutch has already tipped Suzy off, and when she shows him letters from the insurance company which indicate that her life insurance has lapsed, but Alex’s cover is still active, it doesn’t take much brain power to work out where this one is going. There’s another twist, though, when Suzy returns from the cigar shop. After parking the car, she heads for the house and is nearly there when the car blows up! Who’s attempting to kill whom?

The second half starts about an hour after the explosion. Suzy has cleaned herself up, and Dutch is waiting with her while Alex is off dealing with the police. Dutch suggests killing Alex for the insurance money, explaining how he could set it up to give her the perfect alibi. He would come along, take the diamonds, kill Alex, and then tie her up so it will look like the robbers (she has to tell the police it was two men) were trying to get the combination of the safe out of her when Alex came back and was killed. It means she’ll have to wait through the night for someone to find her, but he’s even planned a reason for him to call the police to get them to come over and check up on Alex and find her. It seems like a foolproof plan, but can she trust him, and vice versa?

Then Alex comes up with another idea himself. His car is similar to the local mayor’s, and he suggested to the police that separatists may have targeted the mayor and blown up his car by mistake. He plans to use this to enhance the cover story they’ve been working on, but it means redirecting the police to think that he was the target of the car bomb all along. If only he could get a bomb! By an amazing coincidence, it turns out Dutch is a ‘bang-man’, specialising in bombs and fires, and he agrees to supply a small device so that Alex can blow up a yacht he has in the marina. When Alex sets off with the bomb, using Dutch’s car, both Steve and I wondered if the bomb would actually stay in Dutch’s car, to blow him up later, but a short while later there’s an explosion in the marina. So that’s alright, then. On the way back, Alex is picking up the diamonds, so the scene is almost set for the murder, but which one is going to be killed?

The final scene has the room in disarray, with Alex drinking wildly, when Dutch turns up. Apparently Alex has jumped the gun and killed Suzy already. He shows Dutch (and us) the dead body in the kitchen, behind the curtain, and offers him all the diamonds to help him out of the hole he’s dug for himself. Dutch agrees, and with some ties from the Alex’s wardrobe, he adapts the plan he outlined to Suzy for the new circumstances. Now it’s Alex who’ll be tied up, and will have to tell the police that two masked men burst in, demanded he open the safe, and then killed Suzy when she came back from her walk. Only it doesn’t work out that way.

Once Alex is safely trussed up, and Dutch has the diamonds and the loaded gun, he explains to Alex what’s really going to happen. I won’t go into all the details, but basically he’s going to cause a huge fireball in the room using some candles and a build-up of gas. No evidence will be left, and he’ll be free and clear. He gloats about as long as is safe, and then buggers off. As soon as he’s gone, Suzy comes out of the kitchen, blows out the candles and turns off the gas. As we’d suspected, Suzy and Alex were working together to bring Dutch to justice, since the British police had been unable to do so. In fact, Alex was a Detective Inspector, and Dutch had killed Suzy’s brother, so they both had a strong motive to nail him.

Having told the police that a suspected bomber was heading down the hill in a blue Mercedes, and with Dutch’s little bomb safely stowed in the boot (Alex had made his own for the marina explosion) they hope the police will either catch him and put him away for the rest of his natural, or get a bit trigger-happy and avoid the need for a trial. There is some machine-gun fire, as it happens, but Dutch gets away, and of course he ends up back at the villa to confront the duplicitous pair who tricked him. The gun still has blanks in it, and after firing at them, he collapses on the floor, revealing the three bullet holes in his back. The end.

We’d guessed most of this long before the end. We both wondered if Suzy would come to life before Dutch left, and kill him on his way out. He even stopped several times in front of the curtain, just to tease us, I suppose. That Alex and Suzy were working together to bring Dutch down occurred to each of us about half way through, although we didn’t know the details. An interesting challenge.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Nightfright – May 2010

6/10

By Roger S Moss

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Thursday 20th May 2010

A decent enough production of a pretty average thriller. Ian Dickens Productions tend to do these very much tongue in cheek, and there were certainly a few laughs tonight, though we suspect the locked kitchen door swinging open wasn’t planned. The set had the main entrance far left, window, door to kitchen, locked cupboard door, stairs to upper level (bedroom), door far right to garden/graveyard. This was a converted chapel, which was being rented out by an unscrupulous pair to provide suitable bodies for organ harvesting. Along come one newlywed couple, arriving a day before the resident villains have finished clearing up the previous occupant, and years of careful planning go to waste. How frustrating.

The regular in the cast, David Callister, did a good job as the multiple personality medical villain, while Joanne Heywood matched him as the schizophrenic estate agent come neighbourly vamp. I noticed they were both smiling at the end when they took their bows – I assume that it’s good fun playing those parts, and not something to take seriously. The leads were OK, though I found Helen George’s voice a bit nasal for my liking. But the main problem was the weak writing. It lost all credibility for me when the couple failed to call the police after finding the bloodstained clothes hidden up the chimney, not to mention the freshly dug grave in the no longer used graveyard. Still, they did their best, and we enjoyed ourselves well enough.

I did like the spoof CVs for the fake actors, to give the audience the mildest challenge possible in spotting the double casting. The inclusion of The Grain Store in the actress’s RSC credits was a particularly nice touch, I thought.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Rope – February 2010

6/10

By Patrick Hamilton

Directed by Roger Michell

Venue: Almeida Theatre

Date: Wednesday 3rd February 2010

Yet another hour and three quarters without an interval! Will we ever see a play of three and a half hours again? Or an interval? This must be playing havoc with the income from refreshments. Still, this time I judged things better and stayed the course.

This production was being staged in the round. In effect, the stage had moved a bit further forward, and seats (up as well as down) had been installed round the back. A glass dome was suspended above the room with a chandelier underneath, there was a fireplace far right with a round mirror over, various chairs and tables round the outside of the room and a whopping great chest in the middle. Hexagonal in shape, it stood about two feet high, its panels carved with geometric shapes. The door to the room was to our left.

Mind you, I wouldn’t have seen much of that in the initial gloom of the performance. The two characters who start the play came on with the lights still up, and got themselves and the set ready – knocking over a chair, getting the body half out of the chest. Then the lights were dimmed so that the play began in firelight, with the two murderers stuffing the body in the chest and then pausing to catch their breath. One of them, Granillo, is a bag of nerves, yelling at his partner in crime, Brandon, when he turns the table lamp on. We then get a well-crafted roundup of the story so far, based on Brandon’s need to get Granillo calmed down before their guests arrive. It was well done, I suppose, although as I couldn’t see their faces in the darkness all that acting was wasted on me. And while I appreciate the need to do that preliminary setup in the light, before starting the play proper, I found it slightly distracting. So not the best of starts from my perspective, but not terrible either. (I remember the opening of the production at Chichester many years ago, with two young men reposed on a window seat in a homo-erotic post-coital languor. A slower, but easier to see beginning.)

The manservant, Sabot, arrives and sets out the food and drink for the guests, who start to arrive soon after. Brandon’s already described them for us, so the fun is in seeing just how right he is. Raglan and Leila are a pair of bright young things with few, if any, brain cells left intact from seeing all those awfully good films called ‘something-something’ in which one film star or another was terribly good. The older man, Sir Johnston Kentyon was a nice character, very kind, and it was sad to see his concern when he heard that his son hadn’t come home. His sister was so painfully shy, and her use of stock answers so totally inappropriate, that we couldn’t help laughing on occasion, although Brandon’s treatment of her was quite chilling at times. Finally, there was Rupert Cadell, a poet of sorts, and someone who appeared to have taught these two young psychopaths at some time. His own strictures about living dangerously are thrown back at him during the final explanation, but whether he expressed them before his service in WWI that cost him his leg, I’m not sure.

Having checked the playtext, Bernie Carvel’s performance as Rupert was on the button according to the description given by the author – a limp, an affected manner, including a strange way of talking, etc. – but while I always admire his talent, I found this portrayal got in the way of my enjoyment. With the strange accent I could only make out about half of his lines, and although I thought I got the gist of some of his speeches, I found when I checked the playtext that I’d got some things completely wrong. For example, when Rupert is pointing out the difficulties in obeying the Ten Commandments, I got the impression that he felt fairly safe about not coveting his neighbour’s ox and ass, given the absence of livestock in the vicinity of his flat. However, according to the text, Rupert was actually saying that even with the absence of livestock etc., he didn’t fancy his chances of obeying that commandment either.

The overall effect was that I didn’t feel as relaxed or involved as I would have liked. I was interested to see the original version of the play – Chichester’s version had been based more on the film – and the characterisations and performances were excellent. However, the play has dated, and with the difficulty in making out Rupert’s dialogue as well, this wasn’t the best experience I’ve had at the Almeida.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Murder On Air – October 2009

6/10

By Agatha Christie

Directed by Joe Harmston

Company: The Agatha Christie Theatre Company

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Friday 16th October 2009

In similar fashion to the Round The Horne homage currently touring, this ‘play’ was basically a reconstruction of three Agatha Christie radio plays from the 50s, performed with the cast in full evening regalia, and with a wonderful sound effects man to one side. The three radio plays were Personal Call, The Yellow Iris, and after the interval, Butter In A Lordly Dish (it helps to know your Bible for that one).

This version of the production had Susan Penhaligon and Nicky Henson as the guest stars, and Nicky took the part of Poirot in The Yellow Iris (which later morphed into Sparkling Cyanide). The rest of the cast did a great job with their parts, including sound effects (train), background rhubarb, and shocked gasps. There was a piece of attempted humour with the music, as one of the men appeared to lose his instrument and his place, but it fell a bit flat tonight as nobody seemed to notice it and nobody laughed. The house was less than half full, so I think the lack of atmosphere had a lot to do with it.

The stories were fairly predictable. Let’s face it, a soon as you know a chap’s first wife has died in a tragic accident, and he and his second wife are making wills leaving all their dosh to each other, it’s pretty clear what’s happening. Even so, I enjoyed the way the stories were told, especially when two of the actors were talking in cockney accents while they were all dolled up in their finery. For the end of the final story, when the sound effects chap was hitting a nail into a cabbage, he kept doing it, harder and harder, as he made the closing announcement. The cabbage practically disintegrated – Steve even found a bit of cabbage on his coat at the end, and we were back in row H! I also realised why I don’t care to listen to plays on the radio. The voices, despite the actors’ different accents, are too similar. It’s easier for me to keep track of the characters and the scene changes when I can see them.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Strictly Murder – September 2009

6/10

By Brian Clemens

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 4th September 2009

A nice twist at the end made this thriller a bit above average. I recognised the set from September Tide back in April 2007; there was a strange raised area at the back, with two steps down to the front of the stage, but only in one central place. Very distinctive. Fortunately, this piece was much better than that one.

Set in Provence in 1939, the play sets up the idea that the young man, Peter Meredith, living in the cottage with a young woman, Suzy Hinchcliffe, is not all he seems to be. There’s mention of some scars on his back which look like wounds caused by barbed wire, there’s speculation that there are German spies operating in France, and he seems to be keen to listen for news on the radio about the possibility of war. There’s an old German guy called Josef who wanders around taking food and leaving flowers and carrying a gun. Is he a German spy, or just an old man still suffering from the effects of his service in the First World War? Then a man called Ross comes calling, having recognised the style of painting that Peter produces, referring to the way his cell had been decorated with them, and Peter is forced to take some drastic steps to stay free.

That was in April 1939, and with the second half we move forward several months. Back in April Suzy had announced that she was pregnant, and Peter had been less than enthusiastic about the prospect. Now a man called Ross turns up again with a woman called Miller, and tells Suzy the story of who Peter really is and why it’s not safe for a young woman to be carrying his baby. He arranges with her to set a trap for Peter but will she be able to carry it out?

The Miller role was being played by Georgina Sutton tonight instead of Sabina Franklyn – a last minute thing, I suspect. All the performances were fine and despite one or two remarkable coincidences it was believable enough, with a bit more depth to the central characters. A good evening out.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Write Me A Murder – June 2009

6/10

By Frederick Knott

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Tuesday 16th June 2009

This was the only Frederick Knott play we hadn’t seen, so we were keen to add it to our list. The plot takes place in an old country house, part of a large estate which has been run down over the years. The set showed the study/sitting room, with a section of it walled off to the right. This part had a door or French windows out to the gardens, a filing cabinet, table and chair, and lots of bookcases with some guns displayed on the wall near the front. The door to the other part of the room was towards the back. The sitting room had a door to the kitchen on the left, next to the large fireplace. There were French windows centre back leading to the garden and we could see a sundial just outside them. There were chairs and a desk, and we could also see the stairs up to the bedrooms at the back on the left which was also the way to the front door. There was lots of wood panelling, and various family portraits hung about the place.

The plot concerned the sale of the house by its current owner the Honourable Clive Rodingham to Charles Sturrock, a businessman who’s made pots of money but who started out with nothing more than a chip on his shoulder when he lived in the very village they can see from the windows of this house. He’s mad keen to buy up the big house and become the lord of the manor, getting his own back on all the posh folk who he felt looked down on him all those years ago. He’s brought his young wife with him, Julie. She’s trying to be a writer, and as Clive’s younger brother David is an established author and has finally turned up now that his brother’s told him their father’s dead, Sturrock rather menacingly suggests that David help Julie out with her story which he agrees to do.

She’s attempting to win a short story competition in the newspapers; a small prize, but given her husband’s crushing contempt for her abilities it’s a big step for her. David mainly writes thrillers and detective stories so they start to work out a murder plot. Clive, meanwhile, is off to America to schmooze his prospective in-laws; he’s nabbed a rich US woman and hopes to live a life of contented luxury for many a year to come. There’s also a Doctor pottering around, Elizabeth Woolley, an old family friend as well as the local GP, and still as sharp as a pin. A good mix of characters, with a number of possibilities.

The plot was a little bit clunky, with lots of room for things to go wrong, but it was enjoyable enough. It felt like an attempt to reprise Dial M For Murder; it wasn’t quite up to that standard, although the final twist was lovely to watch. Some decent performances, and a reasonably good night all in all.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me