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Phil Hopkins
Group Travel Editor & Theatre Correspondent
@philhopkinsuk
11:59 AM 5th July 2016
arts

A Killer Of A Play - If It's Your Thing

 
When Agatha Christie went into hiding at Harrogate's Old Swan Hotel in 1926 - part of her stage managed plot to create a Harry Potter style frenzy about her so-called 'disappearance' - the newspaper media went into meltdown.

If nothing else the story serves to prove the British fascination with crime writers and Whodunnit scenarios. Me? I tend to fall into the Whogivesa....t category, meaning the prospect of reviewing Rehearsal for Murder at Leeds Grand left me less than enthusiastic at 7.30 curtain up.

And at the outset I could hear that little voice in my head chirping "Here we go again' until Act II when, fortified by orange juice, I became so intrigued by what was happening on stage that I forgot to guess who might have done it!

There are an army of fans for TV's Murder, She Wrote, and Bill Kenwright has not been shy in promoting his Classic Thriller Company's latest production on the back of the work of writers Richard Levinson and William Link, original penmen behind Angela Lansbury's fictional crime writer Jessica Fletcher.

Murder mystery novels, plays or movies are not a genre that appeal to me, but what I did like about last night's production was the well balanced array of characters.

Alex Ferns as principal protagonist, playwright director Alex Dennison, loses his wife-to-be Monica Welles to suicide just hours after her opening night in one of his productions. But did she top herself?

He thinks not and somehow reunites the cast in a theatre, role playing for two hours the last few hours of his fiancée's life, using his unsuspecting performers to play themselves. Can he discover something that will shed new light on the 'suicide' verdict and allow an undercover detective to place someone under arrest? Then buy a ticket and you will find out!

Every time I watched Ferns all I could see was Tony Hancock bouncing round the stage but, for fear of giving this thespian a comedy complex, he was entertaining and convincing as the slightly paranoid Dennison.

Anita Harris as producer, Bella Lamb (was she part of the death plot to gain insurance cash?), is still strutting her stuff at 74 and looked and sounded great; a seamless delivery.

If you are a Whodunnit fan, then you will be going to this show whatever I say. It was well crafted with slick direction by Roy Marsden and great stage design by Julie Godfrey with suitably eerie lighting from Douglas Kuhrt.

Oh yes, there was a gunshot but worry not, a box of clean undies is issued to every member of the audience before the play starts so no one will be caught short!

Rehearsal for Murder
Leeds Grand
Until Saturday - 7.30pm