Dead On Arrival

Swavesey RADSOC were on the road for this production, performing in four different venues over four nights, including two churches and two village halls, so instead of their usual Swavesey Village College we were at Rampton Village Hall for this their second performance.

Dead On Arrival is a light-hearted Murder Mystery Written by Barry Lambert with this version being directed by first timer Liz Lightfoot.  It centres around a schoolteacher, Hazel who comes home to find a strange man dead on her sofa and she has no idea how he got there, or even why he was dead. Local detectives, Inspector Whalley, Constable Hitchcock, forensic pathologist, Doctor Doris Boffin and criminal psychologist, Julie Bright set out to solve the puzzle with suspicion soon falling on Jakes, the aloof caretaker. But all is, of course, not what it appears.

The set from the production team of Matt Isham and Martin Avery, with the show being performed only once in each venue was sensibly minimalist and consisted of two tables serving as desks, complete with laptops and a chair each for the two detectives, a hat stand, a fax machine and a white board upon which the evidence was pinned as the story unfolded. To the rear was a curtain with entrances and exits being at either end and one or two from the rear of the hall. And it all worked very well. Some of the post-it notes on the white board were highly amusing ‘clues’ with phonetic spelling such as ‘Con See Age.’

Lighting and sound by Martin Avery were well done and appropriate to the scenes.

The acting was excellent and all the characters were well fleshed out. John Pickering was a very plausible Inspector Whalley as you would image a serious detective would be. By contract Ian Farr, playing his sidekick, the much slower on the uptake Constable Hitchcock, wearing a wonderful pork-pie hat throughout provided some of the best comic moments when his character often failed to pick up on the clues, or gets the wrong end of the stick and Whalley, somewhat exasperated has to explain. The audience loved the well delivered banter between them. Rachel Isham was criminal psychologist Julie Bright adding her skills to the part and the banter.  Ian Farr’s voice turns out to be rather memorable, my wife said she had mild anxiety when she first heard it as she was taken back to the performance of the pantomime we saw when Ian kept threatening to reveal the winner of Celebrity Traitors!  This time she said memorable for all the right reasons!

Hannah Whiffin, whom I usually associate with as a pantomime director, having seen two of her shows to date, came out from the backstage to play twin sisters Hazel and Holly and did an excellent job managing to portray their very different character and mannerisms.

Marianne Holt, a tall imposing presence in long white lab coat looked every bit the forensic scientist with a very strong dominating characterisation of Dr. Doris Boffin.

Phil Bailey, another pantomime director sticking his head out on stage, probably had the best lines as the lazy caretaker, or ‘concierge’ as the character like to be called, larger than life, full of himself and answering in deadpan mode was great value and contributed greatly to the comedy within the script. His use of facial expressions was particularly amusing when he was being questioned by the detectives.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable production which certainly kept our attention throughout, a small miracle as we had just driven back from a short trip to Wales that day and freshness wasn’t exactly the order of the day. So well done to Liz Lightfoot, her cast and crew for an excellent evening’s entertainment.  The script did go walkabout in one or two places, occasionally slowing the pace, but the actors covered these minor blips well and everyone involved should be rightly proud of this show.

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