Clue

CLUE is a play, based on the film of the same name, loosely based on the familiar board game, Cluedo. Written by the well-known successful playwright Jonathan Lynn, it is a surreal slapstick comedy set in the McCarthy era in 1950s America. The action is fast and could be bewildering, and it needs a sure touch in direction to ensure that it all hangs together.

The directors Mark Brown, Jo Toomey, and Nicki Mckay have achieved that here, with the complex movements and action being carefully choreographed and plotted out. Production values were good. I particularly enjoyed the Kung-Fu moment, and the matrix-style bullet crossing the stage. Certainly the audience were hooting with laughter as door frames were trundled around the stage to represent different rooms, dead bodies were carried and dumped unceremoniously in various strategic positions, and events were rewound several times to give alternative explanations for the murders that occurred every ten minutes or so!

To hang it all together, the guiding light is the butler, Wadsworth, played in a very calm and reassuring manner by John Foulkes Jones. His deadpan approach to the character was just what was needed to provide a steady rock for the mayhem which was going on all around.

The various colorful characters (get it?) were all characterized well. Colonel Mustard, played by Kirk Bowett, was a very good blustering red-faced soldier, and I stand in awe of his ability to overcome his disabilities. Scheming women are stereotypically capable of murder and Laura Wilkinson (playing Mrs. Peacock, a corrupt politician’s wife), alongside Helen Pack (playing Mrs. White, a professional widow), and Katie Adcock (playing a scarlet woman, Miss Scarlet) were suitably suspicious characters.

The remaining game pieces, Professor Plum, a psychiatrist disbarred for seducing his patients, and Mr. Green, a homosexual FBI agent with capacious pockets (remember this is McCarthy-era America) both played convincingly by James Bell and Paul Meakin respectively.

Other supporting characters include the French housemaid Yvette (Sophie Read); the cook (Paige Perry, who also doubled as the traffic cop and thus managed to get murdered twice); Daniele Petruzzo playing Mr. Boddy, the first body to be discovered; the unfortunate motorist who stumbled by accident into the scenario (Mark Brown, also doubling as another cop), and finally the Singing Telegram, Carla Hibbit, who has perhaps the briefest appearance in any play before meeting her grisly end.

This is an incredibly complicated and wordy play and the actors are to be congratulated for their skill in keeping the plot flowing – I was aware of only one stumble over dialogue on this, the opening night.

Costumes, hairstyling  and make-up were excellent. The incidental music, including  period radio broadcast and sound effects were also very good.

The props were good and the set was simple but generally effective. It’s a shame that dining chairs were not used in the otherwise very funny meal scene- plastic stools were somehow out of place.

Lighting in this show is tricky, with different areas of the stage required to be alternately lit and then plunged into darkness. This was well-managed though occasionally actors were not plumb central in their lit spot.

The stage management was very good with the action flowing well from scene to scene. I hope the standard lamp survived it’s tumble!

The programme is of a good standard with some lovely touches – it will be entered into next year’s regional competition.

Overall an entertaining night out and the audience around me certainly enjoyed it immensely. And who done it? That would be telling, but suspect everyone!

 

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