Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders

My colleague and I were given a warm welcome and shown to a table at the front of the hall from where we had a great view of the action. Having not seen this, the first in the series of Agatha Crusty (pronounced Croosty) murder mysteries, I was really looking forward to reviewing the production.  However I soon gave up on the idea of trying to guess the identity of the murderer, as one by one my suspects were eliminated.

The single set of a village hall had been well constructed, simple but perfectly adequate with the usual tables and chairs and other accoutrements expected in such an establishment.

Caretaker, Harry Knott, suitably attired in navy dungarees, opened the proceedings. A very good performance throughout by Will Murray.  The collapse of the table at which he was sitting looked absolutely spontaneous although of course it had been cleverly set up to do just that. 

Kate Featherstone was a very convincing Agatha Crusty, author of crime fiction and an amateur sleuth. She has arrived in the village to visit her sister-in-law Alice, well played by Tracey Murray, but soon gets caught up in trying to solve the murders and really comes into her own in Act two, going through all the scenarios and giving a masterclass in how to solve a murder. This was much appreciated by the audience and deservedly so.

The role of D.I. Twigg is that of an incompetent police inspector.  He uses an easel and writes pages of acronyms in an effort to explain his theories, only to end up looking totally ridiculous. The role calls for an actor with excellent comedic timing and although Steve Dunn is an experienced actor I felt that his delivery at times fell somewhat short, resulting in some funny lines being lost on the audience.  This was a shame as he was obviously enjoying playing the part.   

A very good performance/s by Rebecca Monk who was obviously enjoying playing the joint roles of twins Oliver and Olivia Truscott-Pratt. I particularly liked her interpretation of Oliver whose favourite, and possibly only, hobby was shooting.  He was rarely seen at the village hall meetings without a rifle and a sack holding the products of that day’s shoot.

Matthew Fyleman was well cast as Toby Bishop the bachelor vicar. The same must be said of Yvonne Hannant as Eleanor Wagstaff, chair of the village hall committee and very obviously sweet on Toby.  Her demonstration of her role in Snow White, currently in rehearsal, was amazing.  So full of expression and in complete contrast to her main character, deservedly resulting in a round of spontaneous applause. 

There were other good performances from Suran Jayathilaka as PC Lockett and Jacqueline Pullen as pub landlady Isabella who prefers the term ‘local hostelry’. Tina Battleday was Mandy the life model who, following the cancellation of the art class, never does get to reveal all, much to the disappointment of some and to the relief of others.

Maisie the cleaner initially appears as a rather insignificant figure until the very end and what a character she turned out to be. Very well played by Lizzie McMillan.

The play needs to move at a good pace, in order to keep the audience fully engaged as well as being able to appreciate the comedy. Unfortunately this didn’t happen and there were times when the production really seemed to lack energy.  There was also a fair amount of masking resulting in some dialogue being lost.

Costumes were appropriate and the music between scene changes, of which many were called for, was well chosen to reflect the storyline. Scene changes though were long and noisy and carried out in complete darkness on an open stage.  I did wonder why the cast, having made any necessary costume changes, could not have repositioned the tables and chairs while continuing with their dialogue, causing less interruption to the pace. This though is a directorial decision and maybe the director had her reasons for doing things as she did.

The audience were obviously enjoying themselves and really showed their appreciation.  The cast, for the most part, were able to pick up on lost cue’s and dialogue and step in to save the day, which is how it should be. There were though some instances where the prompt was required and I was amused to see him acknowledged at the end of the evening.  Ideally of course the prompt should be neither seen nor heard! 

I think the production would have benefitted from a few more rehearsals although I do understand how difficult it is to get a cast together in one place at the best of times.

On the whole this was a good effort but I have seen better from this society and I’m sure I will do so again.

Thank you so much for inviting me to this very funny murder mystery.

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