Spoof thriller a huge success - Murdered To Death

The spoof thriller, Murdered To Death, by Peter Gordon, is a laugh-a-minute production.

Directed well by Giles Watling it had Tuesday night’s audience chuckling at all the double entendres and malapropisms.

The play takes place in a sumptuous country manor house in the 1930s, and the acting from the entire cast is hammed up to perfection.

The house’s short-sighted owner, Mildred, well played by Erin Geraghty, has invited some guests over for the weekend.

Unfortunately supersleuth Miss Joan Maple, played with a stiff upper lip by Elizabeth Williams, pops in and Mildred is murdered.

Enter the bumbling Inspector Pratt, who gets everyone’s name wrong, breaks everything he holds and relies on Constable Thompkins and Miss Maple to do all the work for him and find the murderer.

Norman Pace, who was brought up in Newark and found fame as part of the comedy duo Hale And Pace, is excellent as the accident-prone and idiotic inspector. His comic timing is spot on and his facial expressions are a joy. Chris Elderwood plays the intelligent Constable Thompkins with relish.

Chloe Newsome is Mildred’s well-spoken but dowdy niece, Dorothy, who tries her hand at blackmail when she discovers that paintings her aunt had bought were actually copies of the original.

Victor Spinetti is great as the sherry and brandy drinking butler, Bunting, who causes a lot of calamities.

Roland Oliver and Sandra Dickinson are a delight as Colonel Charles Craddock and his wife, Margaret — ever the argumentative couple.

Darren Machin is great as the shady art dealer, Pierre Marceau, complete with a heavy French accent, while Michelle Hardwick smoulders as the very sexy Elizabeth Hartley-Trumpington.

However, not everything is as it seems and the fun really begins. — DAB.