Murdered To Death
The Haymarket

MURDER, multiple motives and more red haddocks than Agatha Christie could throw a herring at made for a light-hearted entertaining evening at The Haymarket.

Peter Gordon’s Murdered To Death is an utterly tongue-in-cheek whodunit filled with colourful characters and reams of wonderful wordplay.

As an Agatha Christie spin-off, the action is, of course, set in a lounge among the well-to-do spending a weekend at a country manor house when, bang, the owner of the estate is mysteriously shot.

Predictably, each guest has a motive and no alibi and must face an inquisition by a bungling detective.

As you would expect, there is a secret affair, a drunken butler, the niece who is sole heir of the estate, a con artist and an interfering Miss Maple (Elizabeth Williams), who seems to attract murder wherever she goes and has an uncanny knack for solving them.

The Ian Dickens Production has mustered a stellar cast with Victor Spinetti as the befuddled butler Bunting, who steals any scene he is in as he dodders his way about the stage, and wronged wife Sandra Dickinson as Margaret Craddock, who has a great second half.

Norman Pace also shows off his flair for physical comedy as the incompetent and aptly named Inspector Pratt.

Pace (The Hale & Pace Show) has some of the best lines, getting his words and names muddled up in the most unfortunate ways, mostly at his own expense.

Interrupting the long-suffering Constable Thompkins (Christopher Elderwood), Pratt asserts: “If I want clarity, I’ll ask for it. I usually manage without.”

A whodunit can easily fall very flat with a half-hearted cast, but fortunately this set of players were fully committed and seemed to be having a great deal of fun, which carried over to the audience.