Broken Legs Blog

This blog post was written for East Midlands Theatre.

The Classic Thriller Season at Nottingham Theatre Royal kicks off with murder mystery spoof “Murdered to Death”, written by Peter Gordon. The set-up has all the standard signs of a classic Agatha Christie-style affair, with a 1930s manor house playing host to a range of guests, each with their own secrets and hidden agendas. The audience is introduced to the characters (a.k.a our suspects!) one at a time, as lady of the house Mildred (Susan Earnshaw) welcomes them for a dinner party, assisted by her niece Dorothy (Juliette Stobel).

The dinner guests all satisfy our expected clichés, with David Gilbrook portraying the bumbling butler Bunting, Hannah Blaikie as the snooty Lady Trumpington and David Osmond as the sneaky French painter Pierre. These characters are little more than caricatures, but this is in keeping with the style of the play, and each character is portrayed perfectly. I particularly enjoyed Gilbrook’s Bunting, who gradually got more and more inebriated throughout the play after craftily drinking Mildred’s finest sherry.

They are joined by the formidable yet forgetful Colonel Craddock (Jeremy Lloyd Thomas) and his wife Margaret (Sarah Wynne Kordas), whose spiky relationship is a joy to watch. Margaret continuously admonishes her husband for referring to her as “old girl”, whilst the Colonel is clearly more besotted with his Bentley than his wife, getting both mixed up in a memorable scene where each is referred to as an “old banger”.

The arrival of local busybody and part-time super sleuth Miss Maple (Karen Henson in an excellent parody of the well-known detective) injects further comedy to proceedings, as the guests comment that murders appear to follow her around. Inevitably, a murder occurs a few moments later, with Henson’s impeccably-timed one-liners prompting much laughter from the audience.

It is not long before Inspector Pratt (Nicholas Briggs) and his assistant Constable Thompkins (Pavan Maru) arrive on the scene to attempt to solve the mystery. Pratt is frenetic, accident-prone and downright daft as he sets about questioning the various suspects. A re-enactment of the murder by Pratt and Thompkins is a highlight of the play, as is Pratt’s continuous mix-up of the suspects names – although this joke does wear a little thin after a while.

The second half of the play leads to more comedy, further murders and a final reveal – with a twist that I didn’t see coming! Rather than making fun of the genre, the play is more a celebration of murder mysteries, with a cleverly constructed plot that makes the most of our stereotypical group of characters. All of your classic tropes are alluded to here – hidden safes, secret relatives, affairs, lies and shady pasts – and each one contributes to a very fun night of theatre.

The box set, designed by Conal Walsh, is reminiscent of the set for classic mysteries such as “The Mousetrap”, with doors leading off in multiple directions, allowing characters to sneak in on each other and overhear conversations. Under the direction of John Goodrum, each of the characters feels grounded and realistic despite the heightened atmosphere of the comedy, and the audience is clearly invested in the outcome, with the theatre abuzz with theories and suspicions at the interval. At times, I felt the production could have been a little more polished, with some slips over lines and some lengthy breaks between scenes, but overall the production is enjoyable.

“Murdered to Death” does what it says on the tin, and it does it very well indeed. I would highly recommend to all fans of the genre – whether that be murder mysteries, comedy or both!

The Thriller Season continues at the Nottingham Theatre Royal throughout August.

Tom Morley, August 2024