Lymington Players 
The Malt Theatre, Lymington Community Centre, Lymington 
Anne Waggott
11 November 2024
In a spoof of an Agatha Christie 1930s murder mystery, a widow and her niece plan to entertain friends for the weekend. Joined by local sleuth Joan Maple, who somehow manages to invite herself to dinner, it’s not long before the shots start to ring out and the bodies start to fall. Inspector Pratt arrives to investigate, but more than lives up to his name…
Full disclosure… I confess… I love a good whodunit – and Agatha Christie is one of my favourite author/playwrights! So, it could be deemed a risky move to review the opening night of Peter Gordon’s parody of the genre, Murdered To Death, especially as it’s a send-up of Christie’s famous Miss Marple mysteries, with a double-edged sword of high expectations: would Lymington Players be able to meet them?
The answer is a resounding “Yes!”. The tone is established from the opening melodic notes of the evening’s signature tune, setting up the 1930s era and evoking thoughts of both of Christie’s illustrious investigators, further reinforced by the costumes, set design and accents of the protagonists.
There are delightful individual characters amongst this well cast ensemble group of actors, with all having their moment to shine. The characters are deliberately written as caricature stereotypes, and the cast vividly bring each to life with heightened panache and no weak links in the lineup.
In her debut performance on The Malt Theatre stage, Ruth Alinek is brilliant as wealthy acerbic, country manor owner, Mildred, with perfect comic timing, every expression and gesture relaying her earlier experience and quality of performance – welcome to the area!
Jim Lockwood reprises the role of Mildred’s butler, Bunting, which he previously portrayed back in 2010, and is excellent with his deadpan, sardonic monotone, physical and visual humour, and superb timing. Without spoilers, a second act entrance is truly memorable!
Ruth Holleley is the epitome of Joan Maple, the busybody, knitting, amateur sleuth from the village, reminiscent of Joan Hickson’s Miss Marple whilst still claiming the character as her own.
Normally, I would advocate that comedies and satire work best when played relatively ‘straight’ rather than ‘playing for laughs’. However, in this case the amplified caricatures and exaggerated expressions and gestures work brilliantly to elicit every possible bit of humour from Gordon’s script, and none more so than Rachel Mackay (Mildred’s downtrodden niece-cum-housekeeper, Dorothy), Gary Mills (blustering Colonel Cradduck) and Rosie Hodgkinson (high society socialite Elizabeth Hartley-Trumpington).
Chris March is gaining a reputation for portraying incompetent, bumbling officers of the law. Following on from his Spring role as Officer Crabtree (‘Allo, ‘Allo), here he embraces the role of the equally inept detective, Inspector Pratt, with very good delivery of complex dialogue and Spoonerisms, and a terrific rapport with the splendid Peter Cutler as the unfortunate Constable Thompkins, also making his first appearance with Lymington Players.
Catherine Hall’s excellent direction ensures charismatic characterizations and clipped dialogue delivered at a (mostly) cracking pace. Opening night nerves may have been behind the occasional prompts and a few slightly sticky moments; on the other hand, there were also a few times when the cast needed to pause so that the dialogue wasn’t obscured by the audience’s well deserved loud laughter. However, essentially the evening progressed with swift speed and comic timing, with the prompt never detracting from the proceedings. It’s not flawless, but it is great fun!
Murdered To Death runs until Saturday 16 November – if you’re fortunate enough to have secured a ticket for this sell-out production, then you are in for a treat!
