MURDER IN PARIS Basingstoke to 2 February.
Basingstoke
MURDER IN PARIS
by Howard Ginsberg
Haymarket Theatre To 2 February 2002
Runs 2hr One interval
TICKETS 01256 465566
Review Timothy Ramsden 26 January
Sex and death add up to utter tedium.Nothing wrong with thrillers if only they'd occasionally thrill. But if new plays are the life-blood of theatre, then Basingstoke needs an immediate transfusion after giving birth to this anaemic, enervating muddle.
Georges Simenon wrote 400 crime novels and claimed to have bedded 10,000 women. A novel took him a week. The sexual rate isn't on record. And his own daughter killed herself aged 25. This ought to be enough for anyone who can plug in a computer to turn into a piece which would give rise to the occasional frisson along the way.
But this is just six decent actors in search of a character that's worth half their mind. As Andy Jordan's languorous production plods on the only mystery is how an experienced director can have thought this script remotely stageworthy.
After a brief first act which wanders around setting mood and character (somnolent and two-dimensional respectively), the second is a lumpy custard of stodgy late exposition and emotional bursts in which the actors are reduced to arm-waving expostulation of a type that can barely have passed muster first house Monday in 1950s weekly rep.
Except for super-cool Louise Jameson who stares moodily ahead, as if thinking how often she's done the same sort of thing in far more rewarding plays and parts. Or Ian Cullen, whose Inspector spends large tracts of act two (not, alas quite so brief – or did it just seem that way?) standing half in the wings observing. It seems neither writer nor director had any need for his presence but had forgotten to write Exit. So there he stood, like an understudy waiting to run on in case of an actor's mid-show demise (not unlikely – the question is how anyone can survive playing such stuff nightly)
For a sign of how truly awful this script is, there are the sudden French phrases. 'Would you like ,i>un café, Inspector' and such like. Ma foi, but I thought these petits idees went out with that Belgian bloke's little grey cells.
I shouldn't mock; Agatha Christie would look like Ibsen by the side of this stuff. Murder in Paris is simply deadly.
Inspector Mercier: Ian Cullen
Georges Simenon: Michael Siberry
Teresa: Rachel Atkins
Denyse: Louise Jameson
Dr Michel Latour: Julian Forsyth
Marie=Jo: Hannah Yelland
Director: Andy Jordan
Designer: Simon Higlett
Lighting: Simon Hutchings
Music: Robert Hartshorne
2002-02-01 00:56:57