Murdered to Death

The curtains  opened to a well-furnished set depicting the comfortable drawing-room of a 1930’s country house, with an eclectic display of paintings on the walls, setting the  scene perfectly for the action to unfold in typical “Christie” style,  with “red herrings” a plenty! 

Mildred the matriarch of the house (Kathy Othen) is awaiting the arrival of guests for the weekend,  attended by Bunting her long-standing bumbling, rather staid pedantic butler (Nigel Payne), and her niece Dorothy (Dawn Turner) – Bunting gives her the shivers,- who is always at Mildred’s beck and call ensuring that the household ran efficiently. Both are likely to inherit from Mildred’s estate when the time comes.

Soon to arrive is another potential beneficiary, the somewhat crusty Colonel Craddock (David Vas) and his somewhat unhappy wife Margaret (Becky Weir), followed by the rather patronising Elizabeth Hartley -Trumpington (Lizzy Waterhouse) and  a Frenchman Pierre Marceau (Steve Willis). A word here for Lizzie who at very short notice stood in for Lucy Bland who had unfortunately been hospitalised earlier that day.   Lizzie’s performance was a triumph under the circumstances with very few hesitations and the remaining cast also coped very well with the situation. Pierre hopes to persuade Mildred to invest in some more artwork – but is everyone really who they appear to be?

Into the mix comes Miss Joan Maple, (Gillie Cowley) a congenial spinster neighbour, who virtually invited herself to dinner and admits that tragedy has a knack of following her around. The Colonel thinks he recognises Bunting from somewhere, but can’t immediately place him and spots that the paintings previously sold to Mildred by Pierre are not originals. Dorothy accuses Pierre of selling forgeries and tries to blackmail him to keep quiet. Furthermore, it becomes clear that Mildred and the Colonel had an affair 30 years earlier but Mildred is still keen to pick up where they left off. To everyone’s shock Mildred is suddenly shot dead. Cleverly, only the end of a gun is visible to the audience from the hallway and in a few words that Mildred can utter, it is clear that she recognises the perpetrator. Is it possible that everyone has a motive?

Mildred’s murder see’s the arrival of Inspector Pratt (Hugh Raymer)  and his ‘sidekick’ Constable Thompkins (Chris Marsh). The bumbling Pratt certainly lived up to his name, whilst Thompkins had the keener brain – many of their exchanges were very funny. In further confusion the gun still loaded  is found and the Inspector shoots Thompkins by mistake, but luckily only grazes him.

Two hours later (Act 2), Pierre claims to have seen Dorothy shoot Mildred and tries to blackmail her and the Colonel admits he is a fake having made up many of the stories of his time in the forces, spending most of this behind a desk. Bunting with a liking for a tipple appears drunk and we discover that Pierre is not French at all and Elizabeth is more likely from the East End of London. We were kept guessing but I will not describe the ending to avoid a spoiler for those unfamiliar with the plot!

Amongst some excellent characterisations, there were some unfortunate moments of hesitation in the dialogue, but this did not prevent the clear enjoyment of the audience with some great laugh out loud moments.  I really enjoyed it and thank the company for their usual warm welcome.

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