Murder On The Overnight Express

This whole play takes place in only one room so the set is fixed. The set looked impressive - a train station waiting room with chairs, tables, a window, posters on the walls, a few books and magazines and a bench. Well Done to the set designer and painters, very authentic. A small amount of dialogue was uttered behind the closed curtains to begin the play, unfortunately this was quite difficult to hear as members of the audience were still shuffling and settling themselves but they soon quieted as soon as the curtains opened. The play is a classic murder mystery who dunnit? - absolutely filled with tangents, red herrings and suspicious characters. The cast all portrayed their characters with great enthusiasm, various accents were tried out. Georgina Cocker as Delores Delgado gave us a strong southern belle complete with eyelash batting and over the top "actress" drama at every moment. The juxtaposition of her characterisation alongside of Lady Brig (Shirley Luke) created some great tension on stage. I would just mention to Director Hilary Edgerton to move about the room when scene  blocking and consider sight lines , at times Lady Brig was completely blocking other characters on stage from part of the audiences view - however, I do acknowledge that I was not sat where I was originally supposed to be due to a seating plan issue so it may have never come up in rehearsal. Dorene Allport portrayed the acclaimed French Chef Alphonse also known as Fred Buggins, every time she appeared the audience roared with laughter, she had some great facial expressions and her arm gestures were incredibly French, she showed just enough je ne sais pas...

Jess Kouzellis as the prim, straight laced secretaryBrenda Grubbley had us all fooled with her evident appreciation for gruesome deaths and her passion for murder mystery books. She had a lot of information to impart to the audience and her projection was good. Janet Iles played the slightly downtrodden Brigadier, I personally would have liked to see a little more extension of this characterisation as I feel there could have been a bit more depth and comedy elements explored.

The chemistry between Inspector Pluckett( Cath Smart) and the clumsy Williams (Rebekha Burke) was good, they had some solid comedic moments. Yes, we had guessed that Williams done it but the story was well played out with some great facial expressions, Pinter like pauses and reactions to sound effects. I particularly liked that the majority of the dialogue from the whole cast was played downstage , it made it so much easier to hear and so lines weren't being thrown.

Costumes were good throughout and are all made or sourced in house, nothing is hired in. The lighting was sympathetic to the scenes. It was a solid performance from a society trying something new, the front of house staff dressed as railway staff was a lovely touch and the pie and peas supper was very welcome. Myself and my guest enjoyed our visit and I look forward to seeing you all again very soon.

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