Murder In Play

The idea of a murder taking place during rehearsals for a play is not new and this very funny take on the theme by Simon Brett opens with us watching a rehearsal.  Only when the action was interrupted by Boris Smolensky, the ‘director’ of the play being rehearsed, ‘Murder at Priorswell Manor’, did we latch on to what was happening.

The cast of ‘Murder at Priorswell Manor’ are more interested in their own egos than the play and when the ‘directors’ wife is murdered on stage the Murder Mystery aspect of the evening comes into play.  Of course, the plot would be nothing without the odd illicit affair with philandering Boris at the centre of it all.

The performers are all given the opportunity to play both their real characters and their play characters and all of them achieved the change very well with some good diction and timing. 

The fairly useless ‘director’ leads the way and was well and frantically acted by Peter, retaining his Russian accent very convincingly.  The part of Harrison Bracewell provided some lovely comedic moments for Mark to get his teeth into, including spending a lot of his time in the onstage wardrobe.  The entire cast contributed including Karen as Boris’s wife Renee, who gets bumped off at the end of the first act, Katie as Boris’s mistress Ginette, who becomes the prime suspect for the murder (just one of several red herrings), Gordon as Tim Fermor (playing the Major in ‘Murder at Priorswell Manor’), Jenny as a super Christa d’Amato, who takes the role of the housekeeper in the play, Dawn as an excellent Sophie Lawton, the maid in the murder play whose real character turns into a super sleuth and the ‘stage manager’ Pat, performed by Alison.

I thought the play was very well directed by Estelle Hughes with some excellent attention to detail throughout.  The in-house constructed set, as well as all the technical side of the production, was excellent, including the minute detail outside the patio doors.  There was also good use of parts of the auditorium for some exits & entrances and the lighting and sound box which is part of the Barrington Theatre.

All in all this was a very enjoyable production, my first visiting this Society and, I look forward to seeing many more.

 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.