DIAL M FOR MURDER. To 9 June.

Tour

DIAL M FOR MURDER
by Frederick Knott

Middle Ground Theatre Company Tour to 9 June 2007
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review: Alan Geary 17 April 2007 at Palace Theatre Mansfield

Hovers uncertainly between straight and send-up, but entertaining all the same.
It’s not just accents that have changed since 1952. The biggest laugh in this Middle Ground production of Frederick Knott’s classic came when Wendice rings the plod to report a dead burglar and is told they’ll be there in two minutes.

There are other things to laugh at. Faye Tozer, looking ravishing as Sheila, especially in that fetching grey outfit, moves around the stage as if she’s on the end of strings. She improves in the second half, when there’s more sitting about. She sounds as if she’s worked over-hard on the accent: she calls her boyfriend Mex instead of Max.

Dastardly hubby Tony, supposedly a recently retired tennis pro, is not only portly but too limp-wristed to hold a racket let alone play Wimbledon; James MacPherson has him camping around like a Regency fop.

The best performances come from George Telfer, measured and polished as bounder Lesgate, who’s trying to flog his landlady’s motor, and James Morley, playing the Inspector as a shrewd and intelligent Yorkshire type in a mac - it being the fifties, there’s a lot of messing about with macs.

According to the programme, Morley also does the voice of Thompson, a uniformed underling we never see. Since, at two points, the Inspector talks to Thompson, either Morley’s talking to himself or there must have been some temporary re-casting.

Done on a posh London flat set with a huge fifties street-scene photograph overhead, it’s all very entertaining despite director Michael Lunney’s apparent uncertainty about whether he’s giving us a send-up or a straight period piece.

Sheila Wendice: Faye Tozer
Max Halliday: Tom Butcher
Tony Wendice: James MacPherson
Captain Lesgate: George Telfer
Inspector Hubbard: James Morley
Thompson: James Morley

Director: Michael Lunney
Designer: Michael Lunney
Lighting: Sebastian Petit

2007-04-19 00:25:21