Death by Fatal Murder

DEATH BY FATAL MURDER by Peter Gordon is set during World War Two and is part of the Inspector Pratt trilogy. It is a farce and full of slapstick, double entendre and accidents.   It is a hilarious spoof murder mystery.  A local constable is missing and Pratt and his amiable sidekick, Constable Thompkins, are drafted in to help.  

The set was good, well represented the setting and period of production i.e. a country manor in 1940. The props were good and well used.

Overall the costumes were good and thought had gone into emphasising the characters through their costume such as the Miss Maple with her Country Woman apparel and Blodwyn’s clairvoyant’s outfit all fringes and flamboyance! On the whole the costumes were realistic and evocative of the period but I was surprised there was no change of outfit to reflect the action spreading over a few days.

There were some excellent comic moments as the accident prone, mumbling Pratt tries to do his job; he comes across as socially inept and speaks in malapropisms; a very difficult script for the actor to master. In this case Paul Cuttle was successful in this role. Constable Thompkins and the Inspector work well together. There was some corpsing when lines were forgotten and this resulted in the actors and audience having a few more laughs but it did confuse the convoluted story even more for those of us who were trying to follow the plot!   There were some superb performances from the ladies in the cast including Caroline Ebsworth as Nancy, Hazel Bonnin-Barkham as the clairvoyant, Blodwyn (great accents in the séance scene) and Elizabeth Knight was suitably charming as Miss Maple.    Lily Ebsworth was convincing as Enzo Garibaldi and revealing the character’s true accent as an Eastender, allowed her talent to shine.  Well done to all, particularly Ros Shepherd, an experienced Director, for bringing another evening of cheerful entertainment to the Hook stage.  

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