Cluedo

Based on the original film and subsequent play Clue by Jonathan Lynn, Cluedo is the Anglicised version almost identical in dialogue to its predecessor. It’s a deceptively difficult and ambitious play to stage due to many reasons, including the many doors and rooms needed to be travelled through in farce style, yet significant character work is needed on the main suspects. There is also huge amounts of work needed on rhythm and pace, as farce needs to be fast, but with moments of pause to allow it to breathe. Some of the word play in the play is gorgeous and needs emphasising. In all, it’s a mountain for a company to climb. 

The Haven Players inventively used turning panels for the rooms, and used a mobile framed door which they pulled into place when needed. This worked well, including the sequence where the door was turned around by the actors and walked through again which was really funny. The turning panels were a great idea and if they’d been made even more different it would have been more obvious to the audience about the room switches. The props worked really well, including the old fashioned radio which appeared to be working, with a light inside. The lights were well used as was the sound scaping and sound effects and music: both were really great, although sometimes the sound was a little too loud compared with the voice levels on stage. 

Costumes were glorious. Mrs Peacock’s iridescent crow feather collar adorned with extra peacock feathers was stunning, plus matching feathers on her bag. The dresses were gorgeous, including Mrs White’s sequined number and obligatory veil which is part costume part prop. Professor Plum’s velvet jacket with matching hat was super and the Colonel looking like he’d just walked off an African safari was great. Mr Green had a Reverend collar as he’s Reverend Green in the British version but only Mr Green in the American one. Wadsworth the Butler was of course in a tailcoat, here light grey instead of the usual black butler variety. Yvette looked every bit the maid in costume and the cook transformed from kitchen attire to the singing telegram girl in full outfit. Hair and makeup particularly on the women was super: keeping in period of the late 1940s.  

Coming down into the audience and talking to them to move between rooms was such a great idea. Miss Scarlet giving a gentleman a card for her “business” with information on “the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” was hilariously funny, and Colonel Mustard’s improvised recognising of an audience member as someone in the army who was court marshalled for conduct unbecoming an officer was a hoot. The rewinds at the end were good, as were the responses where they all had to speak together: the timing worked perfectly. There were moments when we could have benefitted from more clarity from Mr Green as we couldn’t always hear what he was saying, and it’s unclear what Wadsworth kept looking at in his top pocket for sections of the beginning. The production would have benefitted from more pace, which would have made it funnier. The different character colours on all the weapon gifts was a great touch, and the ‘chandelier’ falling slowly on Mr Green was funny – made more so by the chandelier being quite small. One of the funniest moments was in the ‘library’ where Professor Plum finds a book about the value of forward thinking, where the title hadn’t quite fitted onto the book.  

The lovely thing is that everyone in the company on stage is clearly enjoying it, and that is infectious and the audience feel it. The camaraderie, even when the characters on stage are disagreeing, is something that we all experience as we watch. Well done everyone involved in this challenging and ambitious production. 

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