Two Men in Hats Play Ten Parts in Murder Mystery

Gavin Robertson and Nicholas Collett. Photo by Peter Mould.

Done to Death, By Jove.

Performed at The Bridge House Theatre, Warwick, Thursday 5 December for one night only.

Review by Charles Essex

It could happen to any of us.  A traffic jam or a problem with the car means one is late for an appointment.  A breakdown on the M6 means that the unnamed theatre company can't get to their next performance.  Well, most of them can't, but the two who can do not want to disappoint the audience.  The show must go on, and all that.

The play that they were due to perform is a multi-detective murder mystery with Holmes, Watson, Poirot and Miss Marple.  Gavin Robertson and Nicholas Collett, as the only two cast members who have arrived, start by explaining their dilemma to the audience, and proceed to play all the parts with changes of costumes indicating different characters.  A body is found – it seems like suicide but Holmes et al interview various employees of the health spa, including the doctor, matron, handyman, florist and cooks.

The jokes and humour are often telegraphed, with the wrong costume, mistimed sound effects, and wrong accents.  Gavin Robertson starts one character with a Yorkshire accent before the script indicates that he is from London, and he switches to a superb Michale Caine impersonation, whilst Nicholas’s Miss Marple could have been more feminine.  The audience are regularly brought into the conversation and we are also party to Gavin’s and Nicholas’s on-stage sotto voce conversations about various aspects of how to deliver the dialogue and action.  At the start of Act 2, audience members are brought on stage to give us a brief resumé of Act 1. 

The humour is predictable, at times pedestrian, and the action is slapstick to a certain extent.  When three actors are needed for a scene, clever use of hats held on hands conveys the different characters.  A subtitle of the play could be Men with Hats as this reviewer counted at least 10.

This was a marmite performance.  Listening to the audience in the foyer during the interval and watching the reactions and body language of the audience, it was clear that for some, including this reviewer, this was an enjoyable and light-hearted poor man’s The Play That Goes Wrong, whilst others clearly were unmoved.  This production combines farce and pantomime.  Gavin and Nicholas deserve praise for the effort and energy that went into this performance.

See more from The Attic Theatre:  https://theattictheatre.co.uk/