Curtains

I must admit that I had never heard of this show “Curtains” until invited by Adlington Music and Arts Society to see their production. The show is a musical murder mystery comedy and a parody of a 1950’s whodunit, with music by John Kander and Lyrics by Fred Ebb from a book by Rupert Holmes, based on the original book and concept by Peter Stone with additional lyrics by Kander and Holmes.
The expert production team included, Director Nick Angus, Musical Director Jonny Cunliffe and Choreographer Jennie Miller, who had at their disposal a very talented group of actors who produced very good performances all round, resulting in an excellent very enjoyable show. The show is set in 1959 Boston Massachusetts when the untalented leading lady of the show “Robbin' Hood of the Old West” a cowboy musical, Jessica Cranshaw a comedic Kim Brookfield is murdered during her opening night curtain call, unfortunately this is the first of a series of murders as there are two more murders and some attempted murders which take place before the murderer is found. Enter police detective and musical theater fan Lieutenant Frank Cioffi, to investigate, he is very excited about being in the theatre as he wanted to be a performer on the stage in musicals most of his life, and here he was played outstandingly by John Preston. Believing the murderer is still in the building Frank decides the cast of the show must stay inside the theatre while he, unravels the mystery and at the same time he falls in love with one of the shows leading cast members the lovely good-hearted Nikki Harris (Emily Bailey) and he also gets involved in the show itself. But who is the murderer, there are plenty of suspects which include the show’s writers who used to be a couple and may still be in love with each other, they are Georgia Hendricks (Rebecca Dixon) who takes on the leading lady role after the death of Jessica Cranshaw and her ex-husband Aaron Fox (Ian Hawyes). There is the wonderfully arrogant yet flamboyant and very comedic Director Christopher Belling (Philip May) and Theater Producer Carmen Bernstein (Diane Simmons) who is funny and tough-as-nails, unfortunately her husband and business partner Sidney Bernstein (Chris Higson) is also murdered. Carmen’s daughter Bambi Bernet (Laura Findley) is a member of the cast and is humiliated by her mother in front of everyone, and there is leading man, Bobby Pepper (Anthony Hughes), who may be in love with Georgia Hendricks. Other suspects include Stephen Glenn as Oscar Shapiro the financial backer of the show, but you get the impression that it isn’t voluntary and stage manager Johnny Harmon (Jamie Flavell) who appears to know more than he should and lastly there is The Boston Globe’s Theatre Critic (Nick Angus) who sees the opportunity to get a scoop and somehow manages to get passed the guards at the theatre door.  Is one of these suspects the murderer or is it someone else? The cast in the supporting roles and the chorus all worked and performed very well together and produced some nice interesting characters of their own, they sang very well and performed the applicable good choreography expertly and were a very important part of the action in the show, supporting the principle cast very proficiently.
The very good orchestra was led by Musical Director Jonny Cunliffe who also played the part of Sasha the Musical Director for the show “Robin Hood” which was a nice touch as Jonny had a little solo to sing.
All the action took place on one excellent well-built effective set which was the Boston theatre stage and with the use of applicable period props, very good technical input and excellent costumes, added to the success of the show. Well done to Stage Manager Stephen Pilkington and all the backstage and technical crew.
By the end of the show you really want to know the identity of the murderer and I have to say the resolution was unexpected, but this show is not just a very good murder mystery story, it is also an acknowledgement of peoples love of musical theatre.
Congratulations to everyone involved in bringing this outstanding production to the stage and thank you very much for inviting us we had a great evening.
 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.