Agatha Crusty and the Village Hall Murders

I was given a warm welcome on arrival, shown to a seat at a table, and given a glass of wine.  Having not seen this, the first in the series, of Agatha Crusty (pronounced Crew-stay) plays, I didn’t quite know what to expect.  I soon began to realise that I would never be able to guess the identity of the murderer, as all my suspects were eliminated one by one.

The single set of the village hall had been well constructed/adapted ( the company had to move from their usual venue because of safety issues with the building) and contained what you would expect in such a hall- table, chairs, notice boards, and so on.

The play opens with Caretaker “Harry”, very well played by Roger Kay, suitably dressed in an “official” caretaker overalls and flat cap. The collapsing table extension at which he was sitting looked very spontaneous – cleverly set up beforehand, of course.

Helen King was convincing as Agatha Crusty, the Author of Crime fiction novels and an amateur sleuth.  She arrives in the village to visit her sister-in-law, Alice Fogg, who was well played by Margaret Lukey, but soon gets caught up trying to solve the murders.  She really shines in Act 2, going through all the scenarios and giving a masterclass on how to solve a murder.  This was much to the annoyance of D.I Twigg, but was much appreciated by the audience (and me).

I loved the character of D.I Twigg.  He was an incompetent police inspector who uses a white board and writes lots of acronyms to explain his ludicrous theories, only to end up looking ridiculous.  Andy Studdart was given this role and played him with vigour and good comic timing – something this role particularly calls for.  He looked as if he was really enjoying playing the part and that came across very well.

Sarah Rutherford gave extremely good performance/s in the twin roles of Olivia and Oliver Truscott-Pratt, she was polished in her performance and was able to confidently highlight the differences in the two characters.  I loved the shotgun toting Oliver and the sack containing his latest “kill” which was always with him.

Barry Elener was well cast as the bachelor Reverend Toby Bishop.  He portrayed the part with an air of being quite unaware of the effect he had on the ladies of the village and he maintained this throughout.

Anna Roberts was equally well cast as Eleanor Wagstaff – Chair of the village hall committee and very obviously sweet on the Vicar. Her demonstration of her role in Snow-white, the village panto which was in rehearsal, was very good.

There were other very good performances from Roger Kay – doubling up as PC Lockett and Paula Paylor as pub landlady Isabelle Battersby, who preferrred the term local hostelry.  Her stage death was really well conceived and executed. Hermoine Rutherford was Mandy, the Life model who never actually got to “reveal all” following the cancellation of an art class.  Her demonstration of how to die dramatically on stage, drew much laughter and appreciation from the audience.

Maisie, the cleaner, appeared to be a rather insignificant figure until the end!   But what a character she turned out to be!  She was very well played by Annie Bannister. 

The character played by Razia Whitley, was only ever referred to as Mortimer Gascoyne, the tutor of the cancelled art class, so we only saw him as a dead body falling out of a cupboard. She did that very well.

Charlie Stockwell, the Director of this play needs to be congratulated for overcoming all the extra demands placed upon her, yet still managing to produce a very entertaining play. I thought using the cast members to move the furniture about at scene changes was an excellent idea.  I also appreciate the difficulty of having lighting which was either on or off.  The lighting and sounds man, Alan Daft, coped well with that situation.

I would like to say thank you and well done to Danni Pickles for her welcome and to Pat Elener, and Locksley Rutherford for the refreshments and to all who contributed to a very entertaining evening.

This was my first visit to NOMADS but I sincerely hope that I can see you all again at your next production.

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