The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society Murder Mystery

The fun started as soon as we walked through the front door of the foyer. RODS cast members were meeting and greeting us into their production but in their assigned characters as members of the Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society.

Maree Gaskin, in her role as Clarissa the bossy ‘chair’ of the society, met us with an archly posh greeting and handed us over to the bumbling ‘stage manager’, Gordon Pugh (played by Trevor Bavin…the director of the show).

Now this is where things get delightfully confusing between reality and the script! But first I will talk about the set and props.

The real backstage team weren’t visible at all but were kept really busy supplying and retrieving props and parts of the set that were strewn around the room in Checkmate Manor. The set was very effective as an ancestral manor house complete with old masters on the walls and a delft tiled fireplace but still retained its authenticity as an expertly created amdram set. The team had to construct a set that fell apart in the opening minutes of the performance. I still don’t know how the chess table fell apart, but the collapse of the fireplace flat gave a great shock opening to the show. The cast stage team were charged with re-erecting it and did so upside down thus causing problems for the cast members invited to warm themselves by the fire later on!

This illustrates the complexity of reporting on this show because how do you comment on the quality of acting and production when it is meant to be terrible? It proves how clever this group are to relish the challenge of presenting a play where everything should go wrong.! RODS are so brave in presenting such a funny show relying on each other for wrong timings of cues, forgotten lines (in one case 5 pages missed, poor Gladys Knight!) and props in the wrong places or falling apart in their hands. A terrific well done to the props and costume team. I loved the Flight of the Bumble Bee changing chairs routine. What a lot of work you have all put in to make this show flow so well!

The cast obviously relished this challenge and the chaos flowed throughout the performance. You’ll forgive me if I skip over the Townswomen’s Guild society members names and instead use the cast members in the show. Clarissa, played by Maree Gaskin, the chair of both societies, introduced us to the show and held the quiz and the truly hysterical fashion show not to mention altering the script so that she ended up playing the villain! Fran Heaver, playing the slightly bewildered Lady Doreen, was charming, especially the way she couldn’t read the newly written script and had to hold it at arm’s length. There are so many little nuances that the cast created around the storyline that it would be difficult to list them all. Pawn, the butler, played by Leanne Van Berkum, held the action together so well and her facial expressions were fantastic. Stephanie Phipps, as Regine the maid, was great fun as were Karen Barton and Lynne Bavin as the twin sisters Violet and Rose, especially when manipulating the wheelchair. Mike Robertson and Kathryn Llewellyn made a brief entrance as the Uncle and Aunt before being ‘bumped off’ (with the wrong sound effect of course) with perfect characterisation. All these characters were accurately costumed and had just the right confused but authentic characterisation to lend itself into the bonkers storyline. Charlotte-Alice Spicer as Daphne, the daughter, and Dave Smith as Inspector O’Reilly had a good rapport onstage and were just great. Together they led us through the mystery of the murders whilst illustrating that they didn’t have a clue what was going on themselves. I must reiterate that this was, obviously, intentional and contributed to the hilarity of the script! Goodbody, the lawyer, played by Jonathan Pipe joined in the action at the peak of all the confusion and his dead pan delivery was very funny. Gemma Elsey, Helen Fisher and Heather Spicer as Patricia, Joan and Letitia beautifully contributed to the absolute chaos. 

Well done to the director, Trevor Bavin, for allowing his cast to milk every ounce of fun from this play and giving them the structure in which to do this.

One more congratulation to the cast members for their clear diction. No mics were needed for us to hear every word clearly, but sound cues and music were very effective especially as they all were delivered intentionally at the wrong time! The lighting was beautifully done with only a few lamps to work with. It just shows what can be done in small venues with creativity and team work.

Thank you so much to RODS for their warm welcome to me and my guest. We really had a fun evening with you all.

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