CORPSE! To 7 December.
Tour
CORPSE!
by Gerald Moon
Tour to 7 December 2002
Runs 1hr 50min One interval
Review Timothy Ramsden 26 October at The King's Theatre Edinburgh
Critically dead - but refusing to lie down, Moon's thriller-comedy peeks over the horizon once more.
It's light, it's slight and that's presumably why it's back on the boards again. Four actors, one (split) set and the promise of laughs and shocks: what more can a commercial management short of absolute stars want?
So we have a skilled director (Robin Herford's an Ayckbourn associate and began the life of long-running spook-tale The Woman in Black). And a capable designer: Elroy Ashmore's set cunningly elides the sweeping Cowardesque staircase and fashionable affluence of wealthy Rupert Farrant and, as if nestling shamefully in its armpit, the tiny basement flat of his poor actor-twin Evelyn.
And the kind of cast which, if not stellar, is recognisable and reliable. If there's nothing exciting in the acting, there's nothing the least unsteady or awkward either. Mark McGann clearly relishes his double-act, camp Evelyn and humourless, gravel-voiced Rupert.
Evelyn's campness expresses the only possible explanation for his distaste towards Louise Jameson's radiantly elegant landlady, who combines an admirable tolerance of rent-arrears with an unbeatable offer to make up her dues through increased intimacy with her tenant.
She shares a taste for drink with Evelyn's visitor. Colin Baker never puts an expostulation wrong with his fake officer, a bluff old buffer who turns out less Buff than bluffer, but whose faked Great War career combines with an unerring aim at a pistol's end.
As for David Warwick's helpful bobby on the beat, with a ready supply of police charity raffle tickets, it's quite a delight to see such a stock figure of creaky old thrillers make another appearance.
The whole thing's tongue-in-cheek, of course, and the 1936 setting, though observed duly in the production, doesn't have much resonance. It helps plotting sometimes to be able to ignore more modern ways of communications, and the period placing can help overcome unlikely plot moves: coincidence is a frequent visitor to the action. But mainly a setting in Abdication year allows Moon to set-off the English brother kings Edward and George against the antipathetic, equally contrasting Farrant Freres.
It's all tongue-in-cheek, of course, and the attempted jokes work against the suspense, whereas in first-rate comedy-thrillers they serve the plot. But it's all pleasant enough, with a good sense of disorientation from Evelyn's first cross-dressed appearance, through the puzzle of what he's up to, and (with the aid of body-fragment doubles) precisely which twin is alive or dead at any point.
We're always being told not to hand our brains in with our hats when we go to the theatre. Hats tend to be off anyway, these days, but if brainwise you feel rebellious enough, this mindless entertainment should divert for (almost) a couple of hours.
Evelyn Farrant/Rupert Farrant: Mark McGann
Mrs McGee: Louise Jameson
Major Ambrose Powell: Colin Baker
Hawkins: David Warwick
Director: Robin Herford
Designer: Elroy Ashmore
Lighting: Jack Thompson
Sound: Rod Mead
2002-10-27 17:32:12