A Tomb With A View

Nicely timed for Halloween this black comedy, with echoes of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians, used a fixed set and a cast of ten, no easy task on a small stage.  The set was excellent, with wooden panelled walls, a desk, chairs and empty library shelves, with a door stage left  and French windows stage right. The scene was eerily overlooked by a portrait of the late Master Tomb, whose green eyes cast a baleful glare on the audience. The combination of set and the excellent soundscape created the right mood for this production.  Repeated references to the master, combined with multiple unsolved murders, kept the audience off-track until the end. Just when you thought you had worked out the answer the suspect died.

The company consisted of family members, the family solicitor, two members of staff and a visiting novelist with personal secretary. The raison d’etre was the reading of a will and the allocation of the estate. Hence greed was the driving force for a series of murders that saw just two out of ten cast members still standing at the end of the play.  This was a bodycount that rivalled many of Shakespeare’s tragedies.

The characterisation of each role worked well, with Daniel Curley’s Marcus, the deranged brother with a Julius Caesar complex, and Liz Curley’s Agatha, a housekeeper with Tourette’s, bringing hilarity to an otherwise simply amusing script. Nick Caton played the devious and grasping solicitor, Hamilton Penworthy, to a tee, while Boot Banes and Jean Speller, as Lucien and Dora Tomb respectively, delivered exasperation and eccentricity. Clare Williams was well cast as the strong and manipulating Emily Tomb, while Michele Moody was entirely convincing as the man-mad vamp, Monica Tomb. Janet Osborne Williams made a fine debut on stage as Freda Mountjoy and Chris Rogerson did well as the somewhat simpering Peregrine Potter. Finally, Jodee Goodwin captured well the deceptively submissive nurse, Anne Franklin.

Audibility was good throughout and the pace of the dialogue was generally good also. Lighting and sound worked well and technical effects, such as gunshots, phone rings, off-stage noises, secret panels opening, all worked on cue. While the production seemed over long at times, this was not due to lack of pace or slow scene changes, since there were none. While this play was definitely not a melodrama it certainly had melodramatic elements, given the high body count and the black comedic streak running throughout. I wonder whether some incidental music to accompany each new discovery of a dead body might have given the production the illusion of acceleration or a more speedy unfolding. Nevertheless, an enjoyable evening with a full house for opening night. Congratulations. 

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