Murder Scene

The warm welcome and excellent hosting skills of Laura and Gareth, who were also the sound and lighting engineers, was a great start to the evening ahead. We were escorted to the table nearest the stage and found our place settings, names and individual pack containing the programme and instructions for the murder mystery to come. A glass of wine and a fabulous homemade beef pie and vegetables arrived within minutes provided by the adjacent Life and Soul Kitchen and was truly delicious, as was the individual pavlova for dessert.

Whilst we were eating, the cast, sort of playing themselves, began to set the scene with tantrums and hysterics; the reason for this soon becoming clear as the story unfolded. The three waitresses, Ruby, Izzy and Charlotte (members of Young Magna) were incorporated into the production with hilarity as they rushed to take photos during the livelier moments until they were told to turn their phones off.

The play within the play was a tongue in cheek Agatha Christie come Knives out take on the murder mystery genre with the cast depicting the great sleuths. The setting was a pub where a quiz was about to take place. The trouble starts when the son of Miss Moneypenny has been stranded in Aberystwyth because the car that Dave had sold him finally died. This was the root of the discord in the group and brought out the long-held resentments with varying results, but ultimately the death of Dave.

The characters were well cast, transitioning between their character roles and themselves in another role, was very clever. When Sherlock gets bopped on the nose and leaves the stage taking Watson with him, wonderful chaos ensued.

The sound and lighting effects were carefully mistimed, adding to the pandemonium and the repeated line of ‘I’m so glad it’s stopped raining’ was ingenious.

Sherlock played by Darren Coates did justice to the role and had a good control over the proceedings with his trusted friend Watson played by Adrian Prew who switched between a very Welsh accent to a posh one with aplomb. Paul Oliver was a delightful Poirot and I enjoyed the over emphasis of his French terminology.

Sarah Jenkins and Hilary Jones were brilliant as Marple and Miss Moneypenny and the ease with which they changed characters and tried to keep the play on track was excellent. Their squabbles felt real in a controlled way too.

Dave Jones played the part of James, the local gigolo, with his usual confidence and command of the role.  However, due to the actor’s dislike of him, he was soon disposed of.

Newcomer to Magna but not to the local drama scene, Heather Marshall was hilarious as the pub landlady Mrs Moneypenny. Her increased intake of alcohol depicted with funny dancing and convincing muddled actions.

Betty Morris was the obvious choice to step into the missing Fred’s shoes and with her trusty script in hand acted as if she hadn’t written the play in the first place, it was so funny. I loved how she kept reverting to Director role asking for the lighting/sound to be changed. One of the funniest moments was when Laura approached the stage with a mouthful of food and her plate in hand to ask what Betty wanted… Also, when the back projection with a nice bar scene on it suddenly changed to show supposed text messages between the youth members being derogatory about the cast members had the audience howling.

There was so much going on that I hope I have managed to capture the true essence of the evening which was so much fun. The bickering amongst the cast when they were ‘acting’ as themselves was tremendous; the lines, such as ‘well he only got the part because he’s sleeping with Director’ and ‘Well, I never liked him anyway’ made us all chuckle.

The round up of the question-and-answer session with the cast and our having to write down who we thought had done it was a great end to the evening and it was amazing just how invested the audience was with the concept. I was even more delighted to have been right in my supposition of who ‘did it’.

Well done Magna on what was an excellent evening.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.